Bus and Driver: Inadequate Vetting Edition

Bus and driver rolls on, and over, Chicago lawyer Mazen Asbahi, who Barack Obama's campaign had picked to be its Muslim outreach director.

Too bad Asbahi had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamists.

The eight-year-old connection between Mr. Asbahi and Mr. Said was raised last week by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, which is published by a Washington think tank and chronicles the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, a world-wide fundamentalist group based in Egypt. Other Web sites, some pro-Republican and others critical of fundamentalist Islam, also have reported on the background of Mr. Asbahi. He is a frequent speaker before several groups in the U.S. that scholars have associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Justice Department named Mr. Said an unindicted co-conspirator in the racketeering trial last year of several alleged Hamas fund-raisers, which ended in a mistrial. He has also been identified as a leading member of the group in news reports going back to 1993.

Mr. Said is the imam at the Bridgeview Mosque in Bridge-view, Ill., outside Chicago. He left the board of the Islamic fund in 2005, Securities and Exchange Commission filings state. A message left for Mr. Said at the mosque was not returned.

Allied Asset Advisors is a subsidiary of the North American Islamic Trust. The trust, which is supported financially by the government of Saudi Arabia, holds title to many mosques in the U.S. and promotes a conservative brand of Islam compatible with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and also akin to the fundamentalist style predominant in Saudi Arabia. Allied executives did not respond to inquiries.

The Obama campaign failed to vet Asbahi, and it took outside sources to expose his links to radical Islamists and unindicted coconspirators. Expect those vetters to be tossed under the bus as well for exposing Obama to yet more ridicule.

This is just a taste of the kind of experience and ethical operations that Obama would bring to the White House. It also shows what happens the moment Obama realizes that you no longer provide Obama any utility.

Bus and Driver: Ludacris Edition

Yes folks, it's that time of the campaign season to play bus and driver. Today's contestant is rapper Ludacris. He wrote a song whose inane lyrics have landed Ludacris on the persona non gratis list for the Obama campaign, even after they were all warm and cuddly.

The lyrics:

I'm back on it like I just signed my record deal
yeah the best is here, the Bentley Coup paint is dripping wet, it got sex appeal
never should have hated
you never should've doubted him
with a slot in the president's iPod Obama shattered 'em
Said I handled his biz and I'm one of his favorite rappers
Well give Luda a special pardon if I'm ever in the slammer
Better yet put him in office, make me your vice president
Hillary hated on you, so that b^$&%* is irrelevant
Jesse talking slick and apologizing for what?
if you said it then you meant it how you want it have a gut!
and all you other politicians trying to hate on my man,
watch us win a majority vote in every state on my man
you can't stop what's bout to happen, we bout to make history
the first black president is destined and it's meant to be
the threats ain't fazing us, the nooses or the jokes
so get off your ass, black people, it's time to get out and vote!
paint the White House black and I'm sure that's got 'em terrified
McCain don't belong in ANY chair unless he's paralyzed
Yeah I said it cause Bush is mentally handicapped
Ball up all of his speeches and I throw em like candy wrap
cause what you talking I hear nothing even relevant
and you the worst of all 43 presidents
get out and vote or the end will be near
the world is ready for change because Obama is here!
cause Obama is here
The world is ready for change because Obama is here!

Stay classy.

Obama is going to throw Ludacris under the bus for his comments in an attempt to portray himself as being upstanding, even though he had no problem meeting with him in the past despite Ludacris' repeated use of misogynistic lyrics. The bus is definitely warming up, and that sound you hear is it backing up and over.

Bus and Driver: Wesley Clark Edition

Today's issue of bus and driver finds that former Democratic party presidential candidate and former General Wesley Clark has been cast asunder by the Obama campaign.

Here's a statement from Obama spokesman Bill Burton on Wes Clark's controversial comments about McCain's military service. "As he's said many times before, Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain's service, and of course he rejects yesterday's statement by General Clark."

Still, one wonders whether Clark did his job in attacking McCain's military service and experience for Obama. After all, this is far from the first attack on McCain's military record and experience.

Comrade Klonsky Thrown Under the Bus; UPDATE: Obama's Gun Position Too?

If you aren't familiar with the name Mike Klonsky, you're excused. He just happens to be another one of Obama's Chicago contacts with the Weather Underground terrorist clique that he's associated with for more than a decade. Gateway Pundit has the details:

Mike Klonsky, the Maoist Hardliner, Obama supporter and former best friend of the Weatherman terrorist group founders William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, received a $175,000 grant from the William Ayers/Barack Obama-led Annenberg Challenge to run the Small Schools Workshop.

Klonsky belonged to the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and was best friends with William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who later became famous for their acts of terrorism when the SDS broke up and the Weathermen terror group was formed.

Between 1979 and 1981, Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) (CPML) chairman and Obama supporter Mike Klonsky was repeatedly feted with state-dinner-level visits to Beijing.

Klonsky used to have a blog on the official Obama website. I use the past tense since it's since been scrubbed.

You'd think that Obama didn't want you to know who his friends were - because there might be something unseemly about them.

UPDATE:
It appears that Obama's position on the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms has also gone under the bus, given the Supreme Court's ruling in Heller today.

Another One Rides Under the Bus

Hello Scarlett Johansson. You are officially thrown under the bus. You claimed that you received multiple emails from Obama, but it turns out that you received only one, and that was after her email to the general campaign email was forwarded by a staffer:

speaking to reporters aboard his campaign plane, Obama said the actress doesn't have his personal email address. "She sent one email to Reggie, who forwarded it to me," Obama said, referring to his 26-year-old personal assistant, Reggie Love. "I write saying, 'thank you Scarlett for doing what you do,' and suddenly we have this email relationship"

Well, Hollywood starlets do have an oversized sense of importance and Obama's smackdown was probably well deserved.

Still, it rates an issue of bus and driver because no one is safe.

UPDATE:
I've checked up on the backstory here, and Johansson's brother Hunter works for the Obama campaign, but Politico reported that she claimed to have received a number of emails from Obama directly:

She e-mailed him after some of the Democratic debates, offering her thoughts on his messages and performance. “After the silliness of the last ABC debate,” she says of the highly criticized event co-hosted by Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, she wrote to congratulate him on “holding his ground.”

His replies have been thoughtful, she says, more than a brief line or two; on the ABC debate, he responded that the questioning was “difficult” and he was being pounded on “one silly question after another.”

Johansson is somewhat shocked that he keeps up their back-and-forth correspondence. “You’d imagine that someone like the senator who is constantly traveling and constantly ‘on’ — how can he return these personal e-mails?” she asks. “But he does, and in his off-time I know he also calls people who have donated the minimum to thank them. Nobody sees it, nobody talks about it, but it’s incredible.” She adds, “I feel like I’m supporting someone, and having a personal dialogue with them, and it’s amazing.”

Sorry anonymous emailer and Mrs. Lawhawk, but you're both wrong on your emails relating to this. Scarlett made the claims about receiving multiple emails. Under the bus she goes.

Too bad, since she's definitely the prettiest recipient of Bus and Driver to date.

Today's Issue of Bus and Driver

Today, Sen. Barack Obama sent his ill-conceived and suspiciously familiar looking seal under the bus.

Last week, Barack Obama unveiled a new campaign seal -- and not the kind that swims, barks and balances balls on the end of its nose. Rather, it was the kind that has a big old eagle on it and some Latin (Vero possumus, which translates very loosely to "Yes we can"). It's also a seal that combined elements of Richard Nixon's White House police uniforms and George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished." And it went over about as well. Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times had some fun with it. And Mickey Kaus predicted it would be disappeared over the weekend. His exact words were: "But unless David Axelrod is insane, the thing will never be seen again." Kaus was right. While we don't have full details, someone at Obama's press center, when asked if the seal would be used going forward said simply, "No."

One has to wonder whether we'll hear from the adviser who came up with that idea ever again.

UPDATE:
HT to Geepers of LGF for the snazzy cover.

Today's Issue of Bus and Driver

It's an extended and expanded edition today.

He's busy throwing the hard left under the bus by going along with the FISA amendments, despite the pure unadulterated venom from Daily Kos over the possibility that the telecommunications companies might get immunized from lawsuits for cooperating with the government to keep the nation safe by allowing the government to intercept calls into the US from foreign sources.

Obama is also busy throwing the big US media outlets under the bus, causing what will likely be a bigger problem going forward. Obama's flip on public financing of his campaign has caused quite a few heads to turn.

UPDATE:
Consider this a bleg: major kudos to someone who can provide me with a photo edit of a Bus and Driver mockup with Obama's latest seal on the cover.