Obama's strange politics

It's been equal-opportunity week to attack Barack Obama because of his remarks that seemed to justify a U.S. invasion of Pakistan. Democrats and Republicans alike had a field day at the expense of the poor senator.

In the midst of all this, he addressed the annual meeting of the National Council of La Raza, and talked about realities at home. But those remarks, which I found at least as provocative and troubling, got little public attention.

NCLR is sort of the Hispanic NAACP.

Speaking before an audience of about 2,000, Obama, according to The Wall Street Journal, "compared last year's massive immigration rallies led by Hispanics to the civil-rights marches of African- Americans in the 1960s ..." Regarding the population of illegals in our country today, Obama assured the crowd that "I will never walk away from the 12 million undocumented immigrants ..."

How odd for a candidate for the presidency of the United States to include looking out for the interests of illegals as a campaign promise.

He appears to have already deemed these folks immigrants. The first and central question, that they arrived and remain here illegally, seems of secondary concern to the Illinois senator, a Harvard-trained lawyer. They are just "undocumented immigrants." We just haven't had a chance to get the paperwork done.

Obama is running as a new kind of politician. And it certainly is new for someone campaigning for our nation's highest office, aspiring to assume responsibilities to provide for our defense and to secure liberty for "ourselves," to see representation of the concerns of millions who are here illegally as part of those responsibilities. Can it be that Obama thinks he is running for secretary-general of the United Nations and not president of the United States?

How about his equating immigration rallies to the civil-rights movement of the 1960s?

The analogy is, to say the least, bizarre. And it again gives a sense that the senator's left-wing vision of the world is far closer to his heart than to our own Constitution and how it relates to our citizens.

The injustices that blacks suffered had to do with lack of equal treatment and due process of law for our own citizens because of their race.

The civil rights of blacks, U.S. citizens, protected under our Constitution, that were being violated were clear. What exactly are the rights of illegals that, according to Obama, are being violated? They have violated us, not we them.

The Washington Times reported recently about a heretofore-secret 2005 report done by the Drug Enforcement Administration that discusses Islamic radicals who are "camouflaging themselves as Hispanics while conducting business with violent drug-trafficking organizations." According to the report, "multiple Middle Eastern drug-trafficking and terrorist cells in the U.S. are funding terrorism networks overseas with the aid of Mexican cartels."

Do you get the idea that Barack Obama has some kind of strange idea about what it means to protect this country?

Obama seemed quite at home with the La Raza crowd, dishing out business-as-usual ethnic politics. After conjuring up the mother of all entitlements -- that anyone who can sneak in here is entitled to become a citizen -- he then assured them that virtually every aspect of their life would be benevolently protected by a government under his leadership.

But as Obama shared his vision of America as welfare state to this audience of Hispanics, he failed to also share that, as our nation's youngest ethnic demographic, they have the most to be concerned about regarding the shaky ground on which this welfare state stands.

According to the census bureau, 34 percent of the Hispanic population is under the age of 18. This compared to 32 percent of blacks and 22 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

So Hispanics, and blacks, will disproportionately get washed into the sea of red ink of Social Security and Medicare entitlements that we have promised future generations, but do not have the money to pay.

On the other side of the coin, Hispanics, and blacks, would disproportionately benefit today by being allowed to fund their own private retirement accounts in lieu of paying payroll taxes.

But they'll never hear this from Obama.

Star Parker is president of CURE, the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education. Her e-mail address is

parker@urbancure.org.