A few columns ago we talked about Barack Obama’s character and came to the conclusion that based upon his life history in this course he wouldn’t score higher than an F.  Magna cum laude wouldn’t even be a consideration.  Well, there is another Obama failing trait that is important for anyone who is vying for President of the United States . . . Common Sense!

And now that he is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for President we must examine his Marxism and Muslim comments and apply them to both Character and carefully examine his Common Sense.

What is common sense?  Simplified it is knowing right from wrong.

I don’t really want to get into a discussion of the variations of right and wrong or the social causes for the lack of understanding, let me just give you an example.

Several years ago Fairleigh Dickinson University did a survey in Newark New Jersey among the predominant black community and found that teenagers driving cars would not pay to park in the city where there was a parking meter.  When asked why, they said their parents never paid nor did anyone else in the city.

Of course there was a law in the city that required such a payment — it was a clear lack of understanding between right and wrong.   But it wasn’t the only lack of understanding between right and wrong, there were much more serious issues.

Common sense also says we should know who to associate with. 

It really is a no brainier, in the extreme, to  say it’s not a good idea to associate with the Weathermen, known terrorists who threatened to blow up the Pentagon, or to have a pastor for 20 years that helped you find Christ, married you and your wife, baptized your children, who preaches incendiary and anti-American invective remarks from the pulpit, or to associate with a criminal and enter into a deal with him. 

These are all people Barack Obama has associated with, some of whom he slowly disassociated with and distanced himself from and eventually resigned from his church where these incendary remarks were made, but which he didn’t hear while attending the church, Trinity in Chicago, for some 20 years.

Let us make it clear who Obama was associating with.  More recently than 1995, he was associated with William Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn, far left Weathermen terrorists; a real estate deal with Tony Rezko, convicted of corruption charges, a 20 year association with the Trinity church in Chicago, where he says his character was formed by Rev. Jeremiah Wright who has delivered incendiary language and anti American invective and more recently an association with Catholic Priest Michael Pfleger, who delivered a racist mock of Hillary Clinton, prompting Obama to resign from Trinity.

It was only recently that his wife, Michelle, was proud to call herself an American.  Is that because her husband was running to be the Democratic nominee for President?

Now Obama himself has made some comments that in themselves lack some common sense for someone that wants to be President of the United States.  The most scary from his book “The Audacity of Hope” a title given to him by his former pastor Rev. Wright where he said, “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

Obama, who was raised a Muslim, must explain this statement and now that he has resigned from Trinity — what is his religion?  What church does he belong to?  Do we the people deserve to know? Is he a closet Muslim?

With respect to the Marxism allegation, it basically has to do with a belief that capitalism is based on the exploitation of workers by the owners of capital — and this is where Obama is coming from.

He wants to take away the Bush tax cuts, increase taxes for the wealthy and impose taxes on corporations for windfall profits.  He is a Marxist in the most liberal sense.

Obama only charged today that Countrywide helped “infect the economy” and create the foreclosure problem and his critique of its executives for taking $19 million in bonuses while people were losing their homes.

But the hypocrisy abounds, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday: “Countrywide Financial Corp, makes mortgage loans through a vast network of offices, brokers and call centers.  But a few customers have gotten their loans a special way, through Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo . . . One was James Johnson, a longtime Democratic Party power and an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign, who this past week was named to a panel that is vetting running-mate possibilities for the presumed nominee.”

Now if all of this is not enough, the best test of common sense will be his selection of a running-mate.  Will the pressure get to this young in-experienced on all fronts candidate?  Some in his Party will suggest that his only chance is to form a ‘dream team’ with Hillary Clinton on the ticket.  How can he ignore 18 million votes that belong to her?

If the math worked for him in the primaries, how can he ignore the math running for the White House?

Common sense says Obama should be his own man, select his own candidate and understand what he will get if he selects Hillary.

He will get Hillary and Bill, the later being a constant news maker of the wrong kind that will be a shadow that will not go away.  And if Hillary is selected and Obama makes it into the White House, across the street  will be a government in exile and a government in waiting.

Common sense says he shouldn’t select the Clinton’s.  But I don’t think Obama has much common sense.