title: obama used religious test to favor muslims over christians
text: reprinted from spectatororg  
  tom hayden the vietnam war protester and sds founder died this past weekend at age  
  haydens journey was in many ways tragic born december  in the detroit suburbs he was not unlike many radical leaders a reddiaper baby his parents were irish catholics who named him after st thomas aquinas and sent him to catholic school his father was a marine who worked for chrysler and an abusive drunk haydens parents had a rocky marriage and divorced when he was a boy which affected him terribly haydens friend and exradical david horowitz observed that hayden harbored what irving howe once described as an obscure personal rage possibly from his estrangement from his father tom was indeed an angry man wrote horowitz who seemed in perpetual search of enemies 
  hayden channeled that anger into a group that did much damage to america and was the antithesis of anything that thomas aquinas would have ever imagined sds students for a democratic society 
  hayden will be forever young and forever a hippie in the memories of many americans the snarling activist who married hanoi jane fonda and literally wrote the script for sds hayden wrote sdss manifesto its founding port huron statement which haydens creampuff obituary in the washington post generously referred to as an expansive utopian manifesto that extolled participatory democracy as an antidote to the complacency and conformity of the eisenhower decade 
  right 
  haydens odd expressions of participatory democracy included another writing he scribbled an infamous june   letter wishing good fortune and victory to the north vietnamese colonels who were killing american boys in southeast asia  using the same kind of artillery that haydens sweetheart jane posed beside in her stint as a viet cong covergirl that was just one of countless disturbing actions by tom hayden at the time all of which todays leftists merrily sweep under the rug as they uphold him as a crusader for civil rights and of course social justice 
  but not etched in our memory was what might have been tom haydens swan song long after his and his wifes cheerleading for the viet cong namely the document that he wrote for our president of fundamental transformation few know this but hayden was a founder of another group of destructive forces a group called progressives for obama 
  the groups members came together in  coalescing around the only democratic presidential nominee in their lifetimes who was farleft enough for them to support they constituted a whos who of the s sds crowd among the nearly  formal signers to progressives for obama were mark rudd carl davidson jane fonda thorne dreyer daniel ellsberg richard flacks john mcauliff jay schaffner and more columbia university was naturally wellrepresented if not through the likes of rudd who shut down the campus in  then through current faculty such as todd gitlin a former sds president who today is professor of journalism sociology and chair of columbias doctoral program in communications 
  whereas the likes of obama friends bill ayers and bernardine dohrn were thrust into the national spotlight in  by conservatives like glenn beck and sean hannity progressives for obama flew under the radar largely unnoticed even by the right 
  appropriately spearheading progressives for obama was the man who had spearheaded sds tom hayden was one of the four initiators of progressives for obama along with barbara ehrenreich bill fletcher jr and danny glover 
  it is no exaggeration to say that the signers list of progressives for obama resembled the roster of sdsers called to testify before congress in december  for their subversive activities aside from the likes of hayden rudd and davidson other sdsers among progressives for obama were bob pardun who was sds education secretary from  and paul buhle a professor who has recently sought to revive sds 
  among these names from the insane s all were fired up in  over the unique opportunity that a fellow farleft radical one barack obama offered they saw obama as a golden chance a onceinalifetime moment and they got it on november   obama won the day and they at last won the day too 
  and therein among the progressives for obama the testimony of leader tom hayden was especially revealing 
  understand that after his early life establishing sds meeting with and expressing good fortune and victory to the viet cong and vigorously protesting the american system hayden went into politics professional activism and education like his erstwhile sds brethren hayden grasped the power of higher education which they have pervaded and served as a professor at pitzer college and also at obamas alma mater occidental college 
  like mark rudd like bill ayers like bernardine dohrn all of them now in higher education hayden had come to view a quick revolution of the system as too daunting if not impossible he had become much more patient instead advocating a progressive evolution of slower measured change  by  he was seeking to advance the progressive cause within the established mainstream democratic party 
  of course hayden once helped blow up the democratic partys national convention in  no matter the party of  was different and warmly accepted him 
  hayden was ecstatic over barack obamas presidential campaign he jumped in with both feet looking to assist wherever he could with a rush of enthusiasm not seen since his days undermining america in vietnam not one to tinker around hayden got to work on a formal organization and unifying statement as he had done for sds  once again there at the creation the man who drafted sdss pivotal port huron statement got to work drafting mission statements for progressives for obama 
  during the  campaign a touched hayden was moved to verse over the emergence of obama in one article titled obama and the open and unexpected future written for commondreamsorg selfdescribed as a website for breaking news  views for the progressive community hayden mused 
  i didnt see him coming when i read of the young state senator with a background in community organizing who wanted to be president i was at least sentient enough to be interested when i read dreams of my father sic i was taken aback by its depth this young man apparently gave his first public speech against south african apartheid at an occidental college rally organized by students for economic democracy the student branch of the campaign for economic democracy which i chaired in  the buds of curiosity quickened 
  hayden saw in obama a longawaited vehicle for economic democracy an instrument to channel an equal distribution of wealth  economic justice or redistributive change as obama himself had once put it hayden wished that win or lose the obama movement will shape progressive politics for a generation to come he also hoped that that progressive movement likewise might transform obama as well both could reinforce and shape one another 
  hayden wrote that in june  when obama was elected later the following november hayden was beside himself with joy surely shocked that the american electorate had finally voted for a president that tom hayden saw as his kind of president once upon a time traditional democrats like haydens parents had shaken their heads in disgust at what tom and his pals did to their partys convention in chicago in  at what they did during the days of rage the next year at what they did at columbia during the student strike and on and on but now by  the democratic party was theirs it belonged to the s kiddies 
  the former sds founder became particularly vocal in his praise for obama once the election was over during the election the goal was to organize raise money but not speak too loudly out of fear of driving away the moderates and remaining traditional democrat moms and pops who had worked in the mines and the mills who joined unions who clinged to their god and guns who prayed rosaries and filled churches who were prolife and antigay marriage with the presidency now secured hayden could open up joined by his former comrades at the takenoprisoners website of progressives for obama he began regularly sounding off against obamas critics  those opposing single payer or the public option in healthcare reform or government management of general motors  with the subtlety of a howitzer 
  with the presidency won hayden and his allies were free to express themselves to demonize healthinsurance companies the financialservices industry aig the big three automakers or whatever other capitalist reptile lenins phrase stood in the way of president obamas desire for reform and mandate for change 
  in the twoterm presidency of fundamental transformation under obama hayden and friends achieved many of their common dreams 
  by this election cycle in  tom hayden must have been mesmerized by the revolution he and his fellow radicals had pulled off in the democratic party 
  alas it was fitting that tom hayden became seriously ill his final stand during a turn for the worse at the democratic national convention in philadelphia this past summer where he was striving to ensure that the democratic party continue along the radical path of fundamental transformation that he and his allies had been unable to achieve via sds and the weather underground that path in the hands of hillary clinton is assured 
  today at long last for tom hayden and friends the new democratic party and the new america is theirs he can rest in peace assured that his mission is finally being accomplished