Voight interview with Newsmax

Newsmax: You recently had an article in the Washington Times in which you expressed some of your views on Barack Obama. What would you say is your primary concern about Obama?

Voight: The influences that have created him. You know, if you look back into his past, and it’s not too distant because he’s not a very old fellow, you can see the influences that produced him. It was quite unusual to see at the Democratic Convention that the only people who could stand up for his character were people who a month earlier were saying that he was unqualified for the job, and shocked that he was running, actually. The Clintons and his vice presidential nominee, they were the only people who could speak for him. Can you imagine that the guys who know him best are all very extreme cases? They are characters who are very militant, very angry people.

Newsmax: Who are these influences?

Voight: Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers, Michael Pfleger.

Newsmax: In your opinion piece, you wrote of the “socialist seeds” that Obama would sow. Today the public is focused on the economy in the light of Lehman Brothers, AIG and all that is hitting the headlines. How do you see Barack Obama with respect to handling our economy?

Voight: Barack Obama is a disaster, if you look at his economic plans. The programs that he’s talking about, and the tax increases that are going to support it, are a disaster. You just have to look at that.

Newsmax: What are your thoughts about Sarah Palin?

Voight: First of all, I think she’s just a wonderful woman and a great candidate, and I was deeply moved when that choice was made public. I just thought it was a tremendous choice, and I think that she’s proven herself in her appearances to be as remarkable as we would have hoped she would have been . . . What they’ve done is they’ve just created this mindless smear campaign, calling her every kind of name, and inventing things, and just figuring that if they throw enough [bleep] on the wall that something will stick.

Newsmax: When you say “they,” are you speaking of the media?

Voight: I think, well, whoever’s running this smear campaign — and it is a smear campaign — whoever’s running it. Is it the Democratic machinery?

Newsmax: You have really journeyed from one part of the political spectrum to the other. What caused your shift?

Voight: It just so happens I was part of the ‘60s, you know, the late ‘60s/early ‘70s. I was on the Left, and I was part of all that hysteria. I was wooed by people who were my peers, who were kind of glamorous people. I thought that they knew what they were talking about, and the sound bites that were being traded around were responsible, really, for ending the war in Vietnam