Personal Asides: Obama’s Breaking News…Trivia Again—Can You Identify these Haunting Refrains?

Obama.

Now that Lynn Sweet has reported that CNN has sent a reporter to Barack Obama’s old school and found that it is not teaching militant Islam, we are supposed to die of mortification and beg apologies for even questioning his educative background. Well, not me. This is the first occasion in modern times when matters of a personal biographical nature have been responded to—not by the candidate nor his official surrogates—but by unofficial media sources. John Kennedy was obliged to go to the Houston Ministerial Association and outline his views on Catholicism. Why is it that with only a few scant references in his writings, Barack Hussein Obama is allowed to scamper? Disdaining the asking of pertinent questions is in itself racism: the idea prevalent in those white liberals under 50 who missed the civil rights marches and must erect their own superficialities. I fully accept the blame for setting up the federal office that enacted the minority set-aside program—but I wanted it to last for only a decade. This virulent form of set-aside where it pertains to Barack Obama argues that any questions about his past must be set-aside, ergo the one who asks them is a racist.

CNN may in fact have satisfactorily answered the question as to whether or not Obama was schooled in this militant religion. But CNN is not, ladies and gentlemen, a very convincing authority. The only authority is Obama himself who has neglected for a long-long time to lay out the facts. By not laying out the facts, he and his advisers have set him up for the kind of baseless rumors that emanated from the blogs. They have steadfastly refused to subject the candidate to this inspection or, for that matter, had a spokesman for the candidate to respond. The idea that one is somehow playing dirty pool by questioning the religious views of a presidential candidate flies in the face of history. This has nothing whatever to do with the fact that the Constitution says there should not be a religious test placed on the presidency.

Inspection of religious views of candidates began in this country with the followers of John Adams who questioned the theological views of Thomas Jefferson. They continued through the thorough examination of Abraham Lincoln’s. They took center stage in the campaign of James G. Blaine and the charge of “rum, Romanism and rebellion.” They continued through the pernicious fight surrounding John W. Davis’ of Georgia’s views on the Ku Klux Klan’s position concerning Catholicism in the 1920s and certainly centered on the beliefs of Governor Alfred E. Smith’s Catholicism in 1928—all these things before we got to John F. Kennedy. The idea that Barack Hussein Obama’s religious background should not be further explored because Lynn Sweet, citing CNN, has put an end to the questioning is ridiculous.

But there is one phase of this religious inquiry concerning Obama which is not justified. That is the charge that because he has a pastor who speaks intemperately, Obama should be held culpable. That is not only ridiculous but ridiculous in-extremis. All of us have seen pastors on television—eyes bugged out, perspiring heavily, wiping their faces with handkerchiefs, shouting at a stentorian level. Some of them have even been alleged to be black. I count as blessing the fact that, hard of hearing as I am, I have to turn down the volume when the Reverend Senator-His Excellency the Grand High Swami James Meeks bellows out against sin and for salvation—usually when the time comes to pass the plate to ingratiate this most recent in a long line of ministerial demagogues. But to insist that because someone regularly sits in the audience hearing such verbal tirades he should have to be held accountable is absurd.

Let us continue to seek the truth on the religious journey made by Barack Hussein Obama and hope that he will find the time to respond to the questions about the journey…and that the white liberal coterie will be able to subside their protests to allow him to provide answers. Amen.

Trivia Again.

Without search engines, please give me the answers. The first is a haunting refrain of a song with a snatch of the lyrics going…

He’s got a syncopated gaiter/ and you ought to hear the meter/ to the roar of his repeater/ how they run—yes run when they hear him a-comin/’

Cause the western folks all know…

Give me the title. For bonus points, the song is traditionally sung after a football victory…by whom? And what is the name of the team?

Another. This is very difficult. Again, no search engines.

He was comin’ down the road doin’ ninety miles an hour/ when his whistle broke into a scream/ He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle/ a-scalded to death with the steam.

Give me the title. For extra bonus points give me a bit of the background for the song.