Barack Obama is being accused of shifting to the right, flip-flopping and generally being a typical opportunistic politician. It is said that he has abandoned his principles. Stop! Take a deep breath and think for a moment. We need to try to understand this complex person. He cannot be pigeonholed and then accused of leaving the pigeonhole others have placed him in. He is still the same Barack Obama that we knew back in January.
First, what are his principles?
- He believes in giving a helping hand to those who are down and out through no fault of their own. (Remember: he eschewed a well paying job to work with the unemployed on the south side of Chicago.)
- He believes that political campaigns should not be financed by special interests – PACS, K street and the like.
- He is not an ideologue (and has said so on numerous occasions). He wants to change the do-nothing, polarized politics of Washington. He works to build legislative majorities that can actually get things done. Good things.
- He has consistently known that the Iraq war was a mistake and he is truly committed to getting the combat troops out in 16 months.
- He has taught Constitutional law and has thoughtfully developed longstanding positions on such things as the death penalty, the Second amendment and illegal wiretapping.
- He believes in open, grassroots democracy.
He, of course, has other principles, but this is the list most relevant for this discussion.
When he was a community organizer in Chicago, he worked closely with churches. It is natural that he would understand the value of church-based social programs. If he were to turn his back on such programs now that he is a candidate, he would be abandoning Principle 1. The most expedient thing that he could do is to reject faith-based programs and avoid the wrath of left-wing ideologues. Instead, he stands for all programs that will improve the lives of those that have no hope. (Professor Obama is careful to say that, in implementing church-based programs, the line of separation of between church and state should not be crossed.)
Obama has been steadfast in following his belief that campaigns should not be financed by special interests (Principle 2). Not only has he refused to take contributions from such groups himself, but has insisted that the DNC follow suit. The purpose of public funding of campaigns is to keep big money from influencing the candidates. For Obama to take public money would accomplish nothing since he takes no special interest money. The purpose of public funding, in Obama’s case, has already been fulfilled. Yes, not participating in public funding hurts the cause of those who believe (as I do) in public funding, but the system is badly broken and short of funds. Obama could be a martyr and uphold the cause of public funding by sticking with that system. But better to be a live leader in the White House than a dead (unelected) martyr.
Obama has accomplished a number of valuable things by working across the aisle both in the Illinois legislature and in the Senate. For example, in Illinois he was instrumental in passing a state Earned Income Tax credit, providing for early childhood education and preventing the railroading of those arrested for a crime. In the Senate, he has worked with Republicans to pass ethics reform and to secure nuclear weapons in Russia. It is rigid ideologues and "take no prisoners" party stalwarts who have brought Congress to a standstill. One of the great hopes that Obama offers us is that he can change this bitter partisan atmosphere and get things done. If he is forced by absolutist supporters to wear an ideological straight jacket, his hands are tied and he cannot reach across the isle.
How paranoid can you get? Obama says "refine" with regard to troop withdrawal and everyone thinks (or is made to think by the right wing propaganda machine) that he said "revise" or even "reverse." No one was more surprised than Obama himself when he was accused of changing his stand on Iraq when he used a very inconsequential word – "refine." Get a grip, folks, and don’t be mislead by the "talking points" that the right wing spinners put out and the media picks up and repeats.
As for his interpretation of the Second amendment – that individuals have the right to have guns in their homes – Barack Obama was taking the same position as liberal law professor Laurence Tribe. (Since Obama was a Harvard Law School grad, perhaps he even learned that interpretation from Tribe.)
As long as there is a death penalty, are we going to fault Barack Obama for agreeing that the brutal rape of an 8 year old child deserves the death penalty? It would be rather heartless of him if he took the opposite position. The attacker gave the poor child a life sentence of horrible memories and emotional damage.
And Barack Obama is in good company in (reluctantly) voting for the FISA bill. Morton Halperin, a leading civil libertarian who was himself a victim of wiretapping during the Nixon administration, wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times (July 8) supporting the FISA bill. He pointed out that this legislation includes a number of effective mechanisms for oversight of surveillance authorities by the FISA court. But absolutist liberals insist that we must punish those phone companies that caved into government requests for wiretaps after the country had been attacked on 9/11. Come on folks. It is up to Congress to check an overreaching executive, not the phone companies. And this is precisely what Congress finally got around to doing with the revised FISA bill which needed to be passed.
And so where has Barack Obama departed from his longstanding principles?