LYONS: Obama, the hoax

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The packaging of the Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States, aided and abetted by the drive-by media and major TV networks, have perpetrated a great hoax on the American public. Never before in our history have we had a candidate with such a lack of accomplishments and a lack of transparency into his background and associates.

We can't see his records from prep school, Occidental College, Columbia University or Harvard. What was his thesis? Who paid for his education at Harvard, since there is no record of student loans? There are even questions concerning where he was born. This is a fundamental and critical question. Was he born in Hawaii or Kenya? Did he become an Indonesian citizen? If so, he would have had to give up his U.S. citizenship. Was he then naturalized as a U.S. citizen when he returned to Hawaii from Indonesia? The documentation needs to be made public now. Certainly, security clearance requirements will require that the original documents be produced.

If the backgrounds and record or accomplishments of the two candidates were reversed, you can be assured the message coming out of the major media outlets would be quite different. Past associations matter. If John McCain had a 15-year relationship with the former unrepentant Weather Underground domestic terrorist, Pentagon bomber, flag-stomping radical leftist communist fugitive William Ayers and his accomplice wife Bernadine Dohrn, he would be attacked most critically. His judgment would be trashed.

There is a history of past associations by Barack Obama with black militants and dedicated Marxist leftists that should raise serious concern and should be exposed. If Mr. McCain had worked as a community organizer for the "Industrial Area Foundation," an organization founded by the Marxist radical agitator Saul Alinsky using his training manual "Rules for Radicals," he probably could not have got past the primaries. Likewise, his association with Gerald Kellman - an Alinsky disciple - who would have hired him with a $25,000 grant from the Woods Fund, where Mr. Ayers was on the board, would be more fodder for the drive-by media.

Had Mr. McCain been associated with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, he would be condemned as a racist. The same for his association with nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Let's not forget, Mr. Obama considered Mr. Wright to be his "moral compass" until he became a political liability. There is his association with campaign fund-raiser and "slum lord" convicted felon Tony Rezko. The list of past and continuing questionable associations is too long to be covered here, but while they should be fully and openly vetted to date they have largely been given a pass.

The economy is the No. 1 issue facing the next president along with two ongoing wars. Mr. McCain in 2006 along with other Republican senators sent a letter to the Senate majority leader urging passage of a bill that would have reined in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and possibly reduced the economic crises we are now in. Mr. Obama did not support this effort. In fact, he is one of the biggest recipients of campaign contributions from these organizations.

When Mr. McCain tried to introduce the bill again in 2007, it was blocked by Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and his fellow Democrats.

Mr. Obama states he has a plan to fix the economy. He says he will ensure that "economic justice is served." What this phrase means is code for a socialist agenda for redistribution of wealth following a failed Marxist model of government taxing and spending.

Education is one of the key issues that have been raised to counter inequity in America today. If John McCain's home base were Chicago and he pontificated on how he would focus on early education and helping poor children so another generation is not left behind, the news media would be quick to point out that Chicago has one of the worst education systems in the country for children.

Money is not the problem. Chicago spends more than $10,000 per student. However, less than one-third of Chicago's high school juniors meet the statewide standards in tests. Teacher's salaries are well above the norm and apparently are unaffected by performance.

In 1995, the radical leftist Mr. Ayers selected Barack Obama as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge on "Excellence in Education." His 1995-2000 tenure proved remarkably unsuccessful. When he can't fix the school system in his home base, what does he plan for the country?

Mr. Obama's track record as a united and consensus builder does not exist. His record in the Senate earns him the reputation as the second most liberal senator. His qualifications as commander in chief, when compared to the military credentials and service to our country by Mr. McCain, are nonexistent.

The propaganda that the American public is inundated with today by the drive-by media is the 21st-century version of the 19th-century medicine man whose "snake oil" will cure everything. The American public didn't buy it then, don't buy it now.

James Lyons, U.S. Navy retired admiral, was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations, and deputy chief of naval operations, where he was principal adviser on all Joint Chiefs of Staff matters.