With John McCain beating either Democrat in polls, and the prospect of months of exhausting Democratic Party infighting ahead, an intriguing idea was offered on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal today. It was proposed as a way for Hillary Clinton to save face, and for the party to regain ground lost to the bitter primary campaign. And the power to act lies entirely in the hands of Harry Reid:
The solution that is within his power is simpler, yet more profound than any of the extraordinary political events America has witnessed this election year. It requires only the rarest of things: an individual willing to set aside his own power and ambition for the good of his party and his country. It is this: Mr. Reid could step aside as leader of the Senate and hand the post to Mrs. Clinton. Only the proffer of this consolation prize would likely persuade Mrs. Clinton to drop her divisive, and now futile, quest for her party’s nomination.
Neither Sen. Reid nor Sen. Clinton is likely to actually listen to this advice, for a simple reason: The author of the piece is Richard N. Bond. Since he is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, he is persona non grata to Democrats.
He would be persona non grata to me, too, as founder of the UnParty. But over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that former party chairs can be decents sorts. Look at Henry McMaster and Joe Erwin (and don’t look at Dick "Bad Boy" Harpootlian; that would spoil the picture). And besides, it’s an important UnParty tenet to be open to good ideas wherever they may come from.
Is this a good idea? I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts. Read the whole piece, if the link allows you to, and let me know what you think.
An amusing aside (amusing to me, anyway, as a word guy). Mr. Bond is addressing himself to Democrats — sort of — yet he can’t help engaging in a linguistic tic that labels him immediately as a partisan Republican: He refers to "Democrat primaries," and "Democrat presidential hopefuls." What makes this stand out particularly is that he was actually trying to write in a neutral fashion, acknowledging the difference between a noun and an adjective. Elsewhere, he refers correctly to "a smashing Democratic win," "Democratic gains," "a dream Democratic year," and even, if you can believe it, "the Democratic Party!"
So he tried hard, but couldn’t quite carry it off. He reminds me of Gordon Jackson as Flight Lt. Sandy McDonald, "Big S" in "The Great Escape." Remember how he drilled prospective escapees in their German, and would trip them up by suddenly speaking English, causing them to speak English, and he’d lecture them on not falling for such a cheap trick? Then he fell for it himself during the actual escape. (I couldn’t find video of that scene, but as a consolation prize, here’s a clip of Steve McQueen’s legendary motorcycle chase scene.)
Habitual use or abuse of language carves deep ruts in the brain, and it’s hard to keep your tongue out of them, however hard you try.
Related Posts
That’s a bit like some of the ‘advice’ given out by Karl Rove to the Democrats. They would love to have Hillary as leader, so when they don’t get her as president, they get to beat up on her and Obama, if he gets in as president. Win-win for them.
As far as the actual idea, it seems like a fully reasonable thing, until you realize that concepts like selflessness and magnanimity are not things that Hillary, or many politicians for that matter, possess.
Over time, misuse becomes use. Once a no-no, “judgement” has become a variant of “judgment”. Once used to refer to different birds, “buzzard” and “vulture” have commingled or comingled or co-mingled.
Because “Republican” is the adjective form of the noun “Republican”, perhaps it makes sense to let “Democrat” be the adjective form of “Democrat”, particularly this year, when the primary process for the Democrats, in light of the superdelegates playing a decisive role and the states of Florida and Michigan playing no role at all, isn’t really democratic.
Good idea, whatever the source. The danger in being Un-something often is the demonization of all things Non-Un. Good to see that the revulsion of all Non-Un hasn’t lead to the mindless rejection of intriguing ideas, whatever the source.
Reid could make a good Cabinet member or next party Chairman. Seems like, given this, there could be room to do what is proposed.
I think that Un-partiness should not stand in the way of progress within Parties. Obama represents progress of the Dems back to democratically representing The People and not Corporate America.
That is worthy of an Un-party endorsement. Given the options I move for an Un-party endorsement of Obama for President.
As it happens, this UnPartisan has endorsed both Barack Obama and John McCain. Each of them is the closest thing his party has to an UnPartisan — I mean, now that Joe Lieberman is an independent.
Technically, the position isn’t Reid’s to “offer.” The Senate Majority leader is elected by the full slate of senators of the majority party. I suppose Reid could lobby for Clinton to be his replacement but that’s about all he could do.
I heard a different take on the polls today on the NPR drive-home news show. They had a spinmeister polling in the “purple” states who claimed Clinton was ahead the swing states (FL, OH, PA) and those were the states the election would effectively be held in. I think their basic assumption was that the rest of us were so badly polarized (R vs D)the election was already basically over in most states. They used this analysis to justify the claim there were no useful “national” polls on the overall frontrunner.
“It’s My UnParty”
by Leslie Lieberman
Nobody knows where my Johnny has gone
Obama left the same time
Why was he holding his hand
When he’s supposed to be mine
It’s my UnParty,and I’ll cry or not cry if I want or don’t want to
Cry if I want or don’t want to, Cry if I want or don’t want to
You would or wouldn’t cry or not too if it happened or didn’t happen to you
Michelle Obama tells blacks to avoid corporate jobs and middle-class.
But she was paid $121,000 to sit on a hospital board. After her husband was elected to the Senate, her pay jumped to $390,000.
Mr. and Mrs. Obama were put into a $2,000,000 mansion for a fraction of its retail price, by indicted real estate slumlord client of Obama, Mr. Resko.
Here’s my suggested campaign slogan for John McCain:
He’s older than Reagan and dumber than Bush.
Last summer, no one could imagine a candidate worse than Hillary Clinton, but today we have him. Barack Obama is more socialist, more anti-American, more ignorant, less experienced, and surrounded by an entourage of racists and bigots who want to destroy high achievers and entrepreneurs, from the corner store to Exxon.
Lee, you say that like it’s a bad thing. What are you really getting at?
It’s funny how Lee seems to believe that by calling someone a socialist that makes them an evil person. Get over it. We have socialist tendancies in all all aspects of government. Sometimes it works and sometimes it comes up short. But the term socialism, in and of itself, has very little negative conotation. I would suggest that to call someone a capitalist carries just as much negative baggage.
How about using neither as an insult? Name-calling won’t get you very far, which goes back to the whole “Democrat Party” thing. That’s about one side not giving the the other side the basic respect of being called what they want to be called. It’s like if your name was James and you wanted to be called James, but your coworker insisted on calling you ‘Jim’ or ‘Jimbo’ or whatever, and no matter what you did, he would call you that, just because you didn’t want him to.
Bud, “when you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow.”
And that from the guy that wrote the ultimate socialist song, “Imagine.”
Ah, the heroes of socialism: Stalin, Kruschev, Castro, Ted Turner…
Oops, that’s right. Ted Turner’s a multi-trillionaire who married a Hollywood leftist revolutionary. That’s too hard to figure out, so cross him off.
Stalin, Kruschev, Castro, Kucinich …
McCain voted against the creation of a holiday honoring King in 1983, a vote which was supported by a large number of Republicans. McCain claimed this week that he was largely unaware on the importance of King’s work at the time, due to his Vietnam-era service overseas. Speaking on Thursday to reporters, he explained that his conversion occurred around 1990:
“I voted in my…first year in Congress against it and then I began to learn and I studied and people talked to me. And I not only supported it but I fought very hard in my home state of Arizona for recognition against a governor who was of my own party.”
-John McCain, April 2008
Perhaps in a few months we’ll here these words from McCain:
“I voted in the Senate for the war in Iraq. Then I began to learn and I studied and people talked to me. And I not only opposed it but I fought very hard for withdrawel against a president who was of my own party. Today I understand that the only sensible course of action is to completely withdraw all combat forces from Iraq.”
– John McCain, November 2008
If dreams could only come true. Given McCain’s flip-flopping campaign perhaps there’s hope. Then again, dreams don’t always come true.
McCain voted against the creation of a holiday honoring King in 1983, a vote which was supported by a large number of Republicans. McCain claimed this week that he was largely unaware on the importance of King’s work at the time, due to his Vietnam-era service overseas. Speaking on Thursday to reporters, he explained that his conversion occurred around 1990:
“I voted in my…first year in Congress against it and then I began to learn and I studied and people talked to me. And I not only supported it but I fought very hard in my home state of Arizona for recognition against a governor who was of my own party.”
-John McCain, April 2008
Perhaps in a few months we’ll here these words from McCain:
“I voted in the Senate for the war in Iraq. Then I began to learn and I studied and people talked to me. And I not only opposed it but I fought very hard for withdrawel against a president who was of my own party. Today I understand that the only sensible course of action is to completely withdraw all combat forces from Iraq.”
– John McCain, November 2008
If dreams could only come true. Given McCain’s flip-flopping campaign perhaps there’s hope. Then again, dreams don’t always come true.
After 6,000 years of failure to make socialism works, Obama says he can make it work. At least he admits to being a socialist.
Socialism is unAmerican. It is treason to promote it here.
Bud, I’m no John McCain fan but I would have to give him a pass on the King vote. You have to remember that during Dr. King’s heyday McCain was preoccupied in Viet Nam.
In the “non-partisan” spirit of former RNC chairman Bond’s “suggestion” for how the Democratic party should find its way out of this morass, I offer the following counter-suggestion:
George Bush and Dick Cheney should immediately resign, thus allowing Nancy Pelosi to become acting President until Barack Obama is able to take office next January; following their resignations, Bush and Cheney can go up to Brattleboro, Vermont, where they can surrender themselves to the authorities.
bud, this is probably going to shock you, but I’m against the creation of a holiday for anybody or anything, and have been for many years.
I know this makes me sound like Scrooge, but since the paper has to come out seven days a week, 365.24 days a year (and as I’ve pointed out, even though we’re cutting out opinion pages on Saturdays, the online alternative requires even MORE work from me), it’s tough enough doing seven days’ work in five days so people can have a weekend (and the journalists who work weekends also get their days off, but during the week). When you add a Monday off, that’s 7 days’ work in four days. Yeah, I can and do work on my “days off,” but if you’re a manager (and I’ve been an supervising editor since the late 70s), you can’t make everybody else work on their days off — or at least, you shouldn’t.
So MLK Day added a headache. So did Memorial Day, which we our company didn’t observe until a few years ago. And forget about my problems — should taxpayers have to pay public employees to be off on so many holidays (including some that few in the private sector observe, other than bankers and stockbrokers)?
Am I arguing against the REASONS for these holidays? No. But what is it about taking a day off from work that somehow honors MLK, or our war dead, or… how does it honor Labor NOT to work on Labor Day?
Why can’t we honor these people and these ideas through our work? Why can’t we say, on this day I dedicate what I’m doing to this person’s memory or that ideal? Admittedly, that’s easier for me to do than for a lot of people — we can run content on the subjects — but what is it about sitting around or having a barbecue that shows respect? If you go to a parade or something, fine, but otherwise…
Yes, I think we should have SOME holidays, just to break up the monotony. But we have so many now — each time before I can recover from the last one — that they’re not all that special.
Let’s keep Christmas — even if you’re not Christian, that one at least demands a day off to rest from the craziness of that month. And why not just keep the Fourth of July as an all-around patriotic day to honor ALL the heroes and landmarks of our history — MLK, and Washington and Lincoln (for those who, unlike me, miss THOSE as holidays)? And if you have to have another, do Veterans Day, since it’s keyed to a certain hour on a certain date, like the 4th (although the 4th really should be celebrated on the 2nd, but never mind).
Oh, and Thanksgiving. At least on that one, you can go back in the next day and catch up on work.
Aw, never mind… let’s just have all the holidays we have NOW, and not add any, OK? Can we do that?
Thank you, Brad, for interposing a reasonable voice. I feel the promise of a sunrise now.
Obama is a socialist? Not only is that beyond the pale, it shows a level of simplicity that betrays the apparent intelligence of Lee and Weldon.
We are not a pure capitalist society. Governor Sanford, the man who probably wants state offices to recycle paper towels to curtail government waste, went in search of millions of dollars for child care vouchers despite slashing the budget. Using the definition offered on this blog, his actions are Big Government/pseudo-socialism.
I find it opportunistic, specious, and hypocritical to rail against the government as a whole by liking it to socialism then selectively champion certain government functions. McCain dismisses the need to help U.S. home owners in trouble but supports spending half a billion a day helping home owners in Iraq.
Don’t bother reading the script regarding how this “war” (who is the specific enemy again?) is making us safer. Afghanistan and the wilderness of Pakistan are where the enemies have reconstituted.
Lee, the “anti-American” shtick is a flimsy effort at Macarthyism. America has had 7 years of this and it’s clear we’ve had enough. This was made known in November of 2006 and will again this fall. Rove, with his scheme for a master race of republicans, will be completely marginalized.
Brad, you use a purely utilitarian approach to evaluate MLK day? I think Dickens wrote about you in Hard Times…Mr. Bounderby?
Obama SAID he was a socialist just last week.
For 20 years, his closest friends have been radical socialists, communists, terrorists and criminals who admit to bombings and attacks on ideological opponents: Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dorn, Angela Davis, Jeremiah Wright…
On several occasions, Obama has said he doesn’t care if some program is socialist or communist or if people think it violates their Constitutional rights, that he “will use whatever works.”
LINKS, Lee. Cite your sources.
Go to the Cracker Barrel and pick up Obama’s book on tape, with him reading his own message of hate for white (“blue-eyed devils”) and for his mother and grandmother (“for every drop of white blood in my veins.
Now come the links to the other socialist abd terrorist friends and connections of Barack Obama.
Barack Obama announced his campaign for the Illinois Senate at the home of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, both admitted bank robbers, cop killers, bombers, and proud of it.
In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left:
William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
…“I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers’ house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the senate and running for Congress,” said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care, of the informal gathering at the home of Ayers and his wife, Dohrn. “[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor.”
Ayers is married to another notorious Weathermen terrorist, Bernadine Dohrn, who has also served on panels with Obama. Dohrn was once on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted List and was described by J. Edgar Hoover as the “most dangerous woman in America.” Ayers and Dohrn raised the son of Weathermen terrorist Kathy Boudin, who was serving a sentence for participating in a 1981 murder and robbery that left 4 people dead [Brinks truck robbery–see below for a few details].
Weather Underground/Black Liberation Army Brinks robbery:
http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/brinks/4.html
“No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
LIBERATION THEOLOGY
Obama says he was heavily influenced by Gustavo Gutiérrez.
“Among the several essays published on liberation theology in the 1970s, one of the most famous is by the Peruvian Catholic priest, Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez, O.P. In his 1972 book, A Theology of Liberation, he theorized a combination of Marxism and the social-Catholic teachings contributing to a socialist current in the Church that was influenced by the Catholic Worker Movement and the French Christian youth worker organization, ‘Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne.’ It was also influenced by Paul Gauthier’s ‘The Poor, Jesus and the Church’ (1965). – wikipedia
Obama SAID he was a socialist just last week. – Posted by: Lee Muller | Apr 5, 2008 9:34:04 AM
Your “evidence” is guilt by association? You have no citation for his “quote”? Laughable.
By your definition, Brad and I are socialist because we are Catholics. Catholic social justice and some principles of socialism both include a focus on the good of the community. Jesus was hardly a capitalist so I guess we need to add him to your list.
God bless Charles Krauthammer for taking on the mainstream media’s “hagiographic” treament of the latest Democrat savior, who has embraced a bigot pastor for the last 20 years.
The desperation of the right in this country knows no bounds. With General Petreaus preparing to distort the facts on Iraq, yet again, they turn to attacking an amazing man in Barack Obama by continuing to assault his former marine minister. A man who, unlike VP Cheney, passed on college deferments to serve his country. Indeed the right cannot point to a single accomplishment their party has made in the last 7 years while they controlled all branches of government for most of that period so they dredge trivial non-issues up to scare the American people. And really, isn’t this is all about, fear.
Why don’t we look to the future with hope instead. Hope, that as president Barack Obama can undo the failures of the economic mismanagement of the Bush administration so that millions of people who cannot find work will now have a chance. Hope that we can restore the peaceful world order that the Clinton Administration was so successful in crafting. Hope that Dr. King’s vision of freedom and justice for all can be achieved and that the content of one’s character is truly what matters.
Fear is a powerful motivator for the discredited purveyors of conservative doctrine. Yet I believe hope is an even more powerful motivator. We cannot achieve progress through the regressive failed policies of Bush with promises to continue by McCain. Only through the progressive, forward thinking vision of a true inspirational leader like Barack Obama can we move forward. Obama with Hillary Clinton’s support as Chief Justice, VP or Senate Majority leader gives us that hope. I for one would be a proud American again with Obama as my leader.
Frankly the last 7 years have tarnished the American image and have left me ashamed to call myself an American. But that shame is turning to joy and pride as I see the magnificent Barack Obama emerge as a real leader for all Americans. So rather than engage in the politics of destruction and fear as my conservative friends continue to choose I will instead focus on the future with an anticipation of great things to come.
Obaman HIMSELF said he was a socialist. I quoted him.
In addition, I listed some more of the dozens of radical haters of America, socialists, communists, and admitted terrorists with whom Obama calls his close friends.
You can judge a man by the company he keeps.
So yes, he is guilty by associating with traitors for his entire adult life.
Did the dreaded “right” actually accomplish anything during the seven years you mentioned, Bud?
Well, at some cost and with some inconvenience, terrorism seems to have vanished from our home front.
I’ve been a proud American the whole time, through Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. My pride in our country doesn’t depend on who’s living in the White House.
It pains me to see now that your heroine has lied her way into a corner, you’ve finally decided to spend your political savings on the free lunch Obama’s selling.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
You can quote me on that.
Lee, it’s very simple. You quoted Obama claiming he called himself a socialist “just last week”. Post the link for this quote.
Sorry Weldon, but terrorism from militant, Islamic extremists has never been much of a problem. To suggest that the GOP has somehow lessoned the problem is to say they’ve improved on a situation that was never much of a problem to begin with. There have been plenty of terrorist attacks on America since Bush took over, the Virginia Tech massacre for example, they just don’t qualify as such under the narrow definition used by the neo-cons. And frankly that speaks volumes about the mindset of the neo-con. If a problem doesn’t qualify according to some unspoken neo-con rules then it really isn’t a problem at all.
Take military spending. The right in this country rants and raves about government spending. Yet somehow anything associated with the military is ignored. That’s just plain crap. Military spending costs the taxpayer just like any other spending. For far too long we’ve allowed the right to define the political language in this country. But to suggest that because the GOP says things are going well by some selected, phony criteria, doesn’t make it so. The conservative policies of the GOP have been a disaster. Any realistic assessment of the situation in America verifies that to be the case.
You’re right, Bud, that 9-11 thing wasn’t much of a problem. Every now and then, the loss of a few thousand lives and two of the largest buildings in the country is a small price to pay for someone else’s Islamic zealotry and your Democrat tomfoolery.
The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center? Small potatoes. Those 2004 bombings in Madrid — 191 dead and 2,050 wounded — no big deal. The 2005 London bombings? Likewise. The 1983 bombing that killed 241 U.S. marines in Beirut? Child’s play. The 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103? Not a problem.
I love the world the way you see it, Bud, where we just pull back our military, talk to every Tom, Dick and Harry like Obama wants to, and then watch our way of life smolder, melt and crumble.
There’s no free lunch, Bud. Wake up and smell the fumes.
The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center? Small potatoes. Those 2004 bombings in Madrid — 191 dead and 2,050 wounded — no big deal. The 2005 London bombings? Likewise. The 1983 bombing that killed 241 U.S. marines in Beirut? Child’s play. The 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103? Not a problem.
-weldon
Terrible losses, I agree. Yet these number pale in comparison with domestic murders (15,000+/year), traffic crashes (40,000+/year), preventable medical-care deaths (90,000+/year) and yes the number of our fine young men and women who have died supposedly to prevent these terrorist activities (4,000+ not counting those killed in Afghanistan or non-military personnel).
It’s time to put the relatively infrequent terrorist-related deaths into perspective. They are tragic and the current administration has proven it’s complete lack of competence in defending against these attacks (please note that the biggest attacks have occurred during REPUBLICAN presidencies). The best way to deal with terrorists is to quietly build internal intelligence networks and utilize good police work. All our military efforts have gotten us are more deaths and a distraction from more deadly problems.
If you don’t care about hunting down the murderers of those “small potatoes”…”no big deal”…”child’s play”…”not a problem” crimes which killed over 4,000 innocent people, then I doubt you are serious about fighting crime on American soil, either.
All that law enforcement and military action might cut into a welfare program directly benefitting some “anti-war” liberal.
As long as someone else is the victim, the Selfish Mooching Left declares that crime and terrorism is an “acceptable cost”.
As usual Lee misrepresents what an honest liberal says. Of course I care about the lives of people killed in terrorist attacks. That’s one of the reasons I endorse a complete withdrawal of all military forces from Iraq. That’s not the place from which we’ve been attacked from.
Those soldiers are not available to pursue the real terrorists. They’re not available to help with our police to help eliminate crime in this country. They’re not available to help in times of national emergencies such as hurricanes and earthquakes. But they are available to stir up the animosity among the Islamic people of the middle-east. Those soldiers serve as recruiting tools for the radical terrorists.
It’s pretty clear given weldon’s figures that the largest terrorist attacks occurred during GOP presidencies so I would suggest that someone with any half-way decent reasoning skills would quickly understand that Republicans are doing a much poorer job at protecting Americans from terrorist acts. Yet they continue to argue the irrefutable fiction that the GOP is tougher and more effective at protecting Americans. That simply flies in the face of reality.
Lee Muller, still waiting on the link to support your statement “Obama called himself a socialist just last week.” I think you know you posted a statement that was blatantly false.
Speaking of “acceptable costs” as long as “someone else is the victim”, Lee please share how you have been victimized by the “war” in Iraq. Apparently, you have suffered personal loss and you believe this gives you license to criticize others for having the audacity to have an opinion about a “war” they are helping to finance.
I haven’t been victimized by the war on terror, anywhere – we have all been protected.
Yet the anti-Bush crowd persists in whining about the money spent to protect them, and how the 4,000 Americans murdered by Obama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are not important enough to divert money from welfare programs.
Well, we captured 650,000 tons of nerve gas and biological agents in Iraq, a nuclear bomb factory, and 2 intact hijacker training camps, with all the records of payments to Al Qaeda. That’s not enough to silence the traitors.
Obama explains his socialism in Durham, NC on November 3, 2007.
http://www.extremeink.com/awtk/2007/11/barack-obama-explains-socialism.html
Barack Obama talks of his time at Occidental College in California.Here’s a quote from pages 100 and 101:
To avoid being mistaken for a sellout,I chose my friends carefully.The more politically active black students.The foreign students.The Chicanos.The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets.At night,in the dorms,we discussed neocolonialism,Franz Fanon,Eurocentrism,and patriarchy.When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake,we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints.We weren’t indifferent or careless or insecure.We were alienated.
Communist Party claims connections to Barack Obama:
Professor Gerald Horne, a contributing editor of the Communist Party journal Political Affairs, talked about it during a speech last March at the reception of the Communist Party USA archives at the Tamiment Library at New York University. The remarks were posted online under the headline, “Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party.”
Horne, a history professor at the University of Houston, noted that (Frank Marshall) Davis, who moved to Honolulu from Kansas in 1948 “at the suggestion of his good friend Paul Robeson,” came into contact with Barack Obama and his family and became the young man’s mentor, influencing Obama’s sense of identity and career moves. Robeson, of course, was the well-known black actor and singer who served as a member of the CPUSA and apologist for the old Soviet Union. Davis had known Robeson from his time in Chicago. ”
– from an article, Columbia School of Journalism, March 18, 2008
Barack writes about Frank Marshall Davis as another of is “mentors” in his autobiography.