I feel I'm being hoodwinked.
And it's a strange thing. A month ago it was Hillary's "inevitability" which, as it turns out, doesn't seem quite so inevitable even though everyone told me otherwise.
This month it's Barack Obama successfully managing to paint himself as a 'populist' straight-shooter. Obama believes in giving Americans the cold hard truth on certain issues. Yet, I'm confused.
He gave a speech against the war a few years ago, takes on Senator Clinton for her Iraq War vote, but has a virtually lock-step identical voting record with the Senator from New York on every Iraq bill that has come up snce.
He tells me Social Security is in trouble. But it isn't. He tell me that his Health Care Plan is universal. But it's not.
He castigates Senator Clinton on NAFTA as he makes his way through Iowa, yet his free-trade votes have been the same as hers.
What am I supposed to believe?
Barack Obama promises to be the agent of change. He's perceived by Americans as the candidate most likely to bring about change to our country should he be elected.
I wonder where this comes from. I read, search, twist and turn. I excitedly watched him on C-Span several times after he became a senator. I watched him when Condoleeza Rice had been nominated for Secretary of State. I was anxious to hear and see the man who had given such a dynamic speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention.
He wasn't there.
Instead, I saw a cautious, well-spoken but conventional politician, star wattage and all, but his words were conventional, nonetheless. I expected the gloves to come off. Instead, during both those hearings, I saw a man bent upon getting along.
David Sirota did an interesting one-on-one a couple years back:
http://davidsirota.com/...
Unfortunately, Obama's brand of politics is neither populist nor progressive. He is a liberal Democrat. A traditionalist. He speaks in ideals, but doesn't realize them by getting his hands dirty. He's entrenched himself in just four short years in the Washington DC establishment. He seems all too comfortable there.
A couple of days ago, Hillary Clinton spoke about Barack Obama's lack of candor regarding his health care plan. I've seen each debate. On three different occasions, I've witnessed Senator Obama falsely either state or imply that his plan was "Universal". Both John Edwards and Hillary Clinton corrected Senator Obama on this point, yet Obama stubbornly refuted the truth.
His plan is not universal. Period.
Saying it is, Mr. Obama, doesn't make it so. Your plan leaves millions uninsured. I am not excoriating your plan, which is a good one, but not the most comprehensive of the candidates'. You've been very lucky to have a weak MSM who won't call you down on that one. Senator Clinton was truthful when she said you've been less than clear on the matter.
Of course, I don't care for the manner in which Senator Clinton, who does have a universal plan, virtually boosted John Edwards's health care policy. And it took her eight months of dragging her feet to do it. I expected something revelatory and original from her, but it never came. Edwards set a very high bar and Clinton couldn't jump it. Nevertheless, a good plan is a good plan. I'm glad she felt strongly enough about Senator Edwards's position to co-opt it.
Now, on Senator Obama's fearmongering on Social Security. Shameful, disappointing and unnecessary. Social Security is solvent. While it's important to protect the program, It isn't in dire straits as the Republicans would have us all believe. I resent Obama's pandering to the conservatives on this one. He talks out of both sides of his mouth when he says his brand of politics is 'new'...especially when he pushes the notion that his brand is truthfulness....
New Yorker Magazine
Obama is not the most liberal candidate in the race, so he’s...defining his boldness... as a sort of anti-politics that prizes truthtelling above calculation.
...then turns his back on the truth and uses the Republican meme when he tell us Social Security is in danger.
Krugman on Obama
... incredible that Barack Obama would make obeisance to fashionable but misguided Social Security crisis-mongering a centerpiece of his campaign. It’s a bad omen; it suggests that he is still, despite all that has happened, desperately seeking approval from Beltway insiders.
Substantively, this is wrong — and the tone-deafness is hard to understand.
Which brings us back to Mr. Obama. Why would he, in effect, play along with this new round of scare-mongering and devalue one of the great progressive victories of the Bush years?
I don’t believe Mr. Obama is a closet privatizer. He is, however, someone who keeps insisting that he can transcend the partisanship of our times — and in this case, that turned him into a sucker.
Mr. Obama wanted a way to distinguish himself from Hillary Clinton — and for Mr. Obama, who has said that the reason “we can’t tackle the big problems that demand solutions” is that “politics has become so bitter and partisan,” joining in the attack on Senator Clinton’s Social Security position must have seemed like a golden opportunity to sound forceful yet bipartisan.
But Social Security isn’t a big problem that demands a solution; it’s a small problem, way down the list of major issues facing America, that has nonetheless become an obsession of Beltway insiders. And on Social Security, as on many other issues, what Washington means by bipartisanship is mainly that everyone should come together to give conservatives what they want.
We all wish that American politics weren’t so bitter and partisan. But if you try to find common ground where none exists — which is the case for many issues today — you end up being played for a fool. And that’s what has just happened to Mr. Obama.
Barama has been attacking Senator Clinton on her NAFTA positions, but this is odd considering he's voted with Clinton again and again on NAFTA-like bills (Oman and Peru). What's his purpose in doing this? Perhaps to confuse voters who have been hurt by free trade into believing that he is anti-NAFTA and populist, when in fact, he's been more than supportive of these very trade agreements several times.
It's the only motive that comes to mind.
Oh, I haven't caught him saying he was agaInst NAFTA (in fact, he says the agreement needs to be amended), but he's parsing. That's right. By attacking Clinton for being part of her husband's push to bring NAFTA to life, he's immunizing himself for his own votes on debilitating free trade agreements.
Dishonest. Disengenuous. Deflecting.
Glenn Hurowitz, Huffingtonpost
Yup - Obama is once again helping pass one of President Bush's top priorities - even as Bush blocks the entire Democratic agenda and daily rains rhetorical abuse down on Democratic heads. Is this how Obama is going to negotiate in the White House?
I don't know for sure if Obama honestly felt that the Peru Free Trade Agreement was, on balance, the right thing to do, or whether he just wanted to curry favor with the major corporations whose financial support is fueling his campaign( note: Wall street donors who have given more to Obama's campaign than any other candidate - emma brody). It's probably a little of both. Some Democrats have argued, for instance, that even though the Peru FTA's environmental and labor protections are weak and that the pact could result in significant job losses and deforestation, the fact that there are any protections at all is a step in the right direction and that it could produce modest economic growth.
But I don't think even Obama would argue that passing this highly flawed agreement should be more of a priority than tackling the climate crisis, ending the war in Iraq, protecting civil liberties, or expanding health care - all core elements of the Democratic agenda that have been blocked by President Bush and the Republicans. Obama himself said as much when discussing why he was going to oppose the only slightly weaker Central America Free Trade Agreement, telling workers that because the government was doing nothing about health care or wages, he couldn't "look them in the eyes" and defend free trade.
Why, then did Obama move forward on Peru in a climate where John Edwards has been putting NAFTA's terrible destruction ( one million jobs) on the map? Even Hillary acknowledges the problem with NAFTA (though that didn't stop her from voting for Peru, as well).
Well, Obama has made a pattern of accommodation and capitulation ever since he got to the Senate - and, as a result, keeps getting rolled. He voted for President Bush's class action bill that made it harder for victims of pollution and other corporate malfeasance to be compensated, voted for President Bush's 2005 energy bill that included massive oil, coal, and nuclear subsidies, and voted to allow credit card companies to raise interest rates over 30 percent - all the while getting no help from Republicans in passing the Democratic agenda.
That's why it's hard for me to get excited about Obama's admittedly ambitious climate and energy plan or his plan to end the war. Having lofty goals is great, but those goals will be meaningless without the stiff spine needed to achieve them. And I also worry what his chutzpah deficit says about Obama's ability to win in 2008: if he gets rolled when bargaining with Republicans legislatively, what will happen when he faces the Republican machine in the general election? What's more, what will happen when he's facing the Chinese, Russians, or Iranians at the negotiating table?
Obama, in October, came out with a good environmental policy, although long after John Edwards (who environmentalists will tell you set the standard) put forth his. Months later, in fact. I like his plan very much, but for this:
He believes Nukes should be in the mix. Edwards does not. Hillary is 'agnostic' by her own words. Edwards has been endorsed by "Friends of the Earth" for his strong anti-nuke position.
And for some strange reason, which hasn't been properly explained, Obama chose to attend a fundraiser in Austin Texas rather than participate in the first Presidential Forum for Global Warming held in Los Angeles two weekends ago. Kucinich, Clinton, and Edwards each attended. I was disappointed that Obama missed an important event, yet again.
He didn't attend the AARP debate either. The other candidates did.
His no show on Kyl-Lieberman has been ill-explained. He said he wasn't informed that the vote would take place when it did, and was away in New Hampshire campaigning. But we've been told otherwise. That, in fact, every sitting Senator was notified the night before the vote.
And best as I can tell, he didn't issue a statement regarding his opposition to Kyl-Lieberman until after the debate on September 26, when Hillary was getting hammered by the other candidates on the stage for her 'yes' vote.
All day long on the blogs, people were talking about Kyl-Lieberman. I didn't see one single statement on the matter from Obama until late that night.
That's not leadership.
Hurowitz sums it up:
Democrats and Americans need someone with a big heart and a stiff spine for president - and thus far Barack Obama is clearly not meeting that standard
Obama wants us to believe that he's different from the rest. It's time for him to put up instead of relying on image. He bobs and weaves and deflects time and again. Obama hits Hillary for the very same things he does. He just does it differently.
I was mad at Hillary for talking in circles, for giving the ol' wink-and-nod on the issues. I'm getting more than a little pissed off at Obama for doing the same. He's just smarter about it. His style is more agreeable, goes down easier.
He prides himself on his ability to "get along" and reach across the aisle. Hell, his new campaign ad running in New Hampshire has Republicans who worked with him in the state legislature in Illinois saying all kinds of nice things about him.
Am I supposed to feel good about that? Somehow, it just doesn't reassure me.
Washington DC ain't Illinois. We're in dire straits here and there's no time to mess around in an effort to get along. Being a good politician, Obama, doesn't make one an agent for change.
Should you become president one day, I don't want to see your "Politics of Hope"( which means nothing to me) become the "Politics of Diminished Expectations" with your "Barackness" being the illusion that binds this nation together.
I've seen that movie before.