Finally someone else who doesn't trust Barack and his empty tailored suit. Jane Hamsher over at HuffPo a few fays back wrote the best profile I've read on Barack in a long while, one that is not fawning over his b.s. ideals but actually focuses on his record and how those ideals hold up in those moments when courage and principles and ideals are most under fire and most needed.
Titled "Barack Obama: Profile in Courage or Political Opportunist?" It's reprinted here in full (i've recreated the links as well)
Barack Obama took potshots at Hillary Clinton for her "yea" vote on the warmongering Kyl-Lieberman bill -- a vote he ducked and said nothing about until it became clear that it was a political liability. Considering he was one of the co-sponsors of the equally bellicose anti-Iranian S.970 bill earlier in the year, his claim that he would have voted against it had he only bothered to show up becomes somewhat less than convincing.
But ducking votes and then engaging in historical revisionism seems to be a pattern with Obama. He likewise didn't show up for the MoveOn condemnation vote, which he later said was an attempt to score "cheap political points" -- even though he showed up and voted "yea"* on the Barbara Boxer cheap political points bill that very morning. Now he wants us to think he's pro-choice** because he ducked yet again, voting "present" on important abortion legislation in Illinois -- ostensibly to "give cover" to Democrats in vulnerable districts who couldn't afford to vote "yea" themselves.
Oh please. Would this pass muster if Obama had failed to support important civil rights legislation to give cover to Democrats who lived in districts with lots of bigots? Somehow I don't think so.
Jerome Armstrong:Obama's rationale for voting 'present', lacking plausibility, is probably more simple:I seriously doubt it. Illinois Planned Parenthood is standing behind this stupid "present" strategy like it was some kind of brilliant tactical maneuver. But then again, Planned Parenthood national told their membership to thank Joe Lieberman for his Alito vote.
Obama's friend Link offered another reason for the strategy: to protect those with plans for higher office. A "present" vote helped "if you have aspirations of doing something else in politics," Link said, "and I think [Obama] looked at it in that regard."
It's single-issue politics and not particularly helpful to a big tent strategy, but among democratic primary & caucus voters, particularly women, it seems like a pretty big opening for groups like NOW and Emily's List to go after Obama.
This smells a lot like NARAL endorsing the "fetal pain" torpedo that right-to-lifers were trying to launch into the abortion debate in order to give cover to Democrats who didn't want to take a side on a potentially divisive vote. It's a cravenly politically calculating move to give cover to people who don't want to take a stand, and the fact that pro-choice organizations engage in this kind of posterior-covering rather than defending the rights they're given big money by their membership to uphold is largely why people think their opinion on these things is worth little these days.
The institutional pro-choice groups may line up based on who is supporting who, but I don't expect any courageous stands on principle here.
Obama didn't want to do anything to jeopardize his political future. He openly rejects partisanship and wants everyone to join together in a message of hope, but that tactic seems to depend on ducking out on tough issues and letting others take the arrows one inevitably takes when standing on principle -- and then trying to re-write history when it becomes clear which way the wind has blown.
It's a strategy that is just not going to work for all of the people all of the time.
Well said. (i just remembered a plaque or something that my mom had- "There's more to life than just being 'present' ")And I'm all for ambition but there should be some thing tangible that you're willing to stand for through whatever may come. Something more than your innate sense that you're destined for power. It's like a Revolution led by a man who sends others to take the shots, or recieves the wounds then scolds them for firing and/or being in the line of fire spouting that you would never do such thing. And most great leaders, even if they said it in false modesty and to enhance their legacy, are not pursuing the goal of power their whole lives; it seems to be a more reluctant step, one of answering a call of duty
With Barack I just haven't see that Conviction; I've heard his platform and his "soaring rhetoric" but his main thing is basically that he would rise above partisanship and bickering, which doesn't make sense. How? By playing nice? By making people like you? By not fighting and compromising on things you believe in? There should be no compromise in those matters. Those are the things you fight the hardest for, the things in which you believe the most. So maybe that would work for him because the only thing he seems to believe truly in is the power of himself.
And here were some illuminating pieces from some of the linked articles above.
*"Barack Obama missed the politically dicey vote today on whether to condemn MoveOn for its ad blasting General Petraeus, according to the vote's roll call.
At the same time, however, Obama was indeed present for the vote this morning that came just moments before the MoveOn one. He voted for the Boxer measure condemning the attack on Petraeus and all other members of the military.
The vote he missed on MoveOn, of course, was the far more difficult one politically -- voting for it could make life complicated in the Dem primary by alienating the powerful group and its supporters, while voting against it could conceivably be used against him in a general election."
**Sen. Barack Obama calls himself a strong defender of abortion rights, and the presidential contender quickly condemned the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a ban on a controversial late-term procedure. The decision, he feared, "will embolden state legislatures to enact further measures to restrict a woman's right to choose."
But this is how Obama voted in 1997 when he was new to the Illinois legislature and got a chance to take a stand against bills to impose a similar statewide ban on what critics call partial-birth abortion:
"Present," the political equivalent of taking a pass.
Perhaps nothing illustrated Obama's calculating style more than his approach to abortion. The state Senate voted 14 times on various abortion restrictions during his tenure. Half the time, Obama voted "present."
He said it was a strategy agreed to by abortion-rights advocates to insulate Democrats from political backlash in more conservative areas. But Obama's Hyde Park district was one of the state's most liberal.
From the moment he arrived in the Illinois Senate, it was clear to many that Obama didn't plan to stay. Just months into office, he approached then-Senate Democratic Chief of Staff Mike Hoffman and offered to buy him a beer. The two adjourned to a hotel bar.
No specific office came up, Hoffman said, but the legislative freshman's message was clear. Obama "wanted me to know that he had other ambitions.
In 2003, with Democrats in control of the General Assembly and Obama readying his U.S. Senate run, he became a whirlwind of legislative activity
Obama has long publicly promoted his support for abortion rights, but his voting record in Springfield is not simple to read.
Obama said he sought compromise with abortion opponents, but they balked. As a fallback, he said he worked out an arrangement with abortion-rights advocates to encourage Democrats to vote "present" on some bills if they feared a "no"would look insensitive and endanger their re-election.
But few of the other Democrats who voted "present" on abortion bills recall such a strategy. And, like Obama, they weren't politically vulnerable.
Obama's friend Link offered another reason for the strategy: to protect those with plans for higher office. A "present" vote helped "if you have aspirations of doing something else in politics," Link said, "and I think [Obama] looked at it in that regard."
In a recent interview, [Hendon] said Obama was so ambitious that if the position were up for a vote, Obama would run for "king of the world."
{UPDATE 12/20 and only today does the wider MSM seem to care about this with an article in the Times and this Election Central Memo. But once again a President cannot just be "Present" and cannot just be on the sidelines there.}
The end should not be the purpose, the purpose should be what is pushing you towards an end. I can't articulate exactly what I want to say and luckily no one is reading, but I just don't trust Barack any farther than I can throw him and I'm only 12_ pounds with a bad knee.
To me Barack's words really mean nothing; they're only mellifluous Sound and Fury.
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