OBAMA THE MAGNIFICENT!!!!
Sun Dec 09, 2007 at 01:52:45 PM PDT
.... triangulator.
Welcome to the real world. In the real world, politicians equivocate, doubletalk, make alliances with unsavory characters, make (or miss) votes based on political calculation rather than conviction. In the real world, some politicians find it necessary to distort the truth about their opponents in order to gain political traction.
Barack Obama lives in the real world. So does Hillary Clinton. So does John Edwards.
The focus of my diary is Obama, because I read that "big name bloggers" all had it in for Obama----so why not let a small name blogger take a shot too!
In reality, there's nothing new to say about Edwards, and lots going on with Obama, so this is a good time to take a fresh look at a candidate who wears no rose-colored glasses.
I freely admit to poaching the wonderful diaries and comments of Eriposte over at http://theleftcoaster.com for much of this material.
His latest diary is a tour de force---possibly his best yet.
"Barack Obama's War On/Of Triangulation" puts together the most concise case that Obama is a .. gasp.. politician.
The subject of the diary is the evil sin of triangulation. Before heading into examples, let me give Eriposte's definition, which is suitable for my purposes. This is from a reply to a commenter:
Mike,
Glad you asked. Because there is no accepted definition for triangulation.
Going back to the TNR "Third Way" crap that led to Bill Clinton's approach to governing being called "triangulation", my post is as much a mockery of the term [I use the superscript "TM" often to mock the Villagers' nomenclature] as it is a discussion of the fact that how "triangulation" is defined is much less relevant than the specific actions of the politicians when it comes to their rhetoric and voting record (or lack thereof). People call Hillary Clinton a triangulator all the time without knowing what the hell they mean. I am simply using Obama's record to show that a lot of what is used against Hillary to call her a "triangulator" is exactly what Obama does and Obama does a lot more of it.
Triangulation thus, is anything which causes Hillary to be called a triangulator, or the equivalent action by another candidate.
Eriposte's diary has 12(!) distinct sections, from obvious topics like Iraq, Iran and abortion, to Joe Lieberman, and Obama's awesomely triangular behavior in CT.
I want to cover the sections on abortion, Lieberman, Iraq, Iran, and the final two sections, which have quotes illustrating Obama's general philosophy.
One last word, before I dive into the details. Obama is a qualified candidate. I do not believe he is the best, for two reasons: first, I think that his campaign skills are nowhere near as good as Hillary's; second---and more troublesome to me---I do not believe he demonstrates actual leaderhip. His record of avoiding difficult votes and especially his lack of a serious attempt to move Iraq policy are the worst sins, to me.
Let's start the "fun" with everybody's favorite short Senator,
Joe Lieberman!
Look what Obama did for Lieberman:
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama rallied Connecticut Democrats at their annual dinner Thursday night, throwing his support behind mentor and Senate colleague Joe Lieberman.
Obama, an Illinois Democrat who is considered a rising star in the party, was the keynote speaker at the annual Jefferson Jackson Bailey Dinner.
Lieberman, Connecticut's junior senator, is under fire from some liberal Democrats for his support of the Iraq War. He was key in booking Obama, who routinely receives more than 200 speaking invitations each week.
Some at Thursday's dinner said that while they were pleased with Lieberman's success in bringing Obama to Connecticut, they still consider Lieberman uncomfortably tolerant of the Bush administration.
Obama wasted little time getting to that point, calling it the "elephant in the room" but praising Lieberman's intellect, character and qualifications.
"The fact of the matter is, I know some in the party have differences with Joe. I'm going to go ahead and say it," Obama told the 1,700-plus party members who gathered in a ballroom at the Connecticut Convention Center for the $175-per-head fundraiser.
"I am absolutely certain Connecticut is going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate so he can continue to serve on our behalf," he said.
...
Lieberman became Obama's mentor when Obama was sworn into the Senate in 2005. They stayed close at Thursday night's event, too, entering the room together and working the crowd in tandem.
and then compare what Clinton and Obama did after Lamont won the primary:
The story gets more interesting after Lieberman lost the Democratic primary race to Lamont.
Sen. Obama then donated $5000 to Lamont's campaign and wrote a letter to his CT supporters asking them to support Ned Lamont. In contrast, Sen. Clinton did much more:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont over for coffee Friday, discussing campaign strategy and offering to host a fundraiser, a spokesman for the senator said.
"It was a great meeting. Senator Clinton thinks Ned Lamont did a fabulous job in Connecticut," spokesman Howard Wolfson said, referring to Lamont's upset victory over Sen. Joe Lieberman in the state's Democratic primary.
Lieberman is running as an independent in November, and Republicans have attempted to cast his primary loss as a sign that the Democratic Party has been taken over by its extreme left wing.
At Clinton's Westchester County home, she and Lamont "talked about what Mr. Lamont can expect from the George Bush-Karl Rove attack machine," Wolfson said. "She told him Republicans were invested in defeating him."
Clinton has contributed $5,000 from her political action committee to Lamont's campaign and will do "whatever works for the campaign," Wolfson said. Wolfson, one of Clinton's senior political strategists, also said he will join the Lamont campaign as an adviser.
Clinton had offered tepid support to Lieberman, but moved quickly after the Aug. 8 primary to endorse Lamont, a Greenwich businessman who heavily criticized Lieberman's support of the Iraq war
The net result? Sen. Obama continues to be portrayed as a saint and Sen. Clinton is the one continuously and falsely compared to Sen. Lieberman. Quite some calculated triangulation principled courage on the part of the Obama campaign, huh?
Whose the one who is pilloried for their behavior in that campaign again? sratches head
Okay, what's next?
How about
Obama's strawmen!
From Obama's DK 2005 diary:
A pro-choice Democrat doesn't become anti-choice because he or she isn't absolutely convinced that a twelve-year-old girl should be able to get an operation without a parent being notified. A pro-civil rights Democrat doesn't become complicit in an anti-civil rights agenda because he or she questions the efficacy of certain affirmative action programs. And a pro-union Democrat doesn't become anti-union if he or she makes a determination that on balance, CAFTA will help American workers more than it will harm them.
Do you see the problem with that quote? Well, imagine Hillary said the same thing and you would have no problem!
Which Democrats, exactly, are absolutely convinced that a 12 year old girl needs unfettered access to abortion? Hmm.. not sure about that one. Wonder how Obama feels if the father is the father? Should be be notified? Would it be a radical position to suggest that he not be notified?
How about abortion in general?
Let's also recall this comment by Garance Franke-Ruta in the American Prospect earlier this year (emphasis in original, except where stated):
Indeed, Obama's track record on controversial votes is something I've been thinking a lot about over the past few days, ever since he appeared to call for new regulations on abortion in response to a question from an anti-choice listener in Iowa on Saturday. According The New York Times Obama said:
there is a large agreement, for example, that late-term abortions are really problematic and there should be a regulation.
As there is no such movement toward a new late-term abortion regulation among any pro-choice group I am aware of, I asked Obama spokesman Bill Burton for elaboration on this over the weekend. He said:
Obama did not suggest that new regulations were needed or appropriate. He simply stated the fact that there is agreement that late-term abortions should be limited to the rare instances where the life or health of a woman is at stake. And he has consistently made clear that abortion regulations, such as the Federal Abortion Ban, that lack exceptions for the life and health of women are unconstitutional and endanger women's health.
Both those statement suggest some comfort with banning second-term abortions, however, as most states already ban early third-trimester ones, as Roe permits them to do. And Obama is correct in that there is very little public support for keeping second-term abortions legal. Still, it would have been easier to interpret Obama's statement if he had a clear voting record on this topic. Instead, Obama managed to absent his opinion from the Illinois legislature twice during votes on a partial-birth ban in Illinois -- voting present rather than yes or no -- muddying the actual record about his beliefs. Clinton in 2000 said that she would be open to a ban on late-term abortions, as well, but when push came to shove in the U.S. Senate, she voted against the partial-birth abortion ban which Bush signed into law in 2003 and which the Supreme Court upheld earlier this year. So her record is clear. [Eriposte emphasis]
In other words, Sen. Obama said he was in favor of legislation against late-term abortions and when he had an opportunity to make it clear what his position was on the so-called "partial-birth abortion" he avoided revealing his true position by voting "Present", unlike Sen. Clinton who clearly voted no, allegedly due to the political concerns of his friends and colleagues. That's quite a record against poll-tested triangulation.
Are you guys still "present"? Ok, good. Let's talk about Iraq now.
I find Obama's record on Iraq the single most troubling part of his record. How can someone with such deep-seated anti-war positions have a voting record which is nearly identical with Hillary "Hawk" Clinton's?
Eriposte writes:
[Sen. Obama's] voting record on Iraq once he entered the Senate was virtually identical to the voting record of Senator Clinton. As Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld noted at TPM Election Central:
So here it is: A massive compilation of Iraq-related bills -- and the votes by Hillary and Obama on them, side by side -- beginning in early 2005, when Obama first joined the Senate.
Of the total of 69 votes we compiled -- some significant, some not -- it turns out that the two differed on only one.
...
As you can see, Clinton and Obama have voted the opposite way on only one vote on our list: The confirmation of General George Casey to be Chief of Staff for the Army, held just this past February. Hillary voted against confirmation, while Obama voted to confirm.
So, while this doesn't take any credit away from Sen. Obama for his original anti-war position, it does raise the obvious question of what exactly he did in Congress differently that distinguished him on Iraq from Sen. Clinton, whom he claims to be "fundamentally different" from on this issue. As a corollary to this, his go-forward vision on Iraq is also not dramatically different from Sen. Clinton's, as Taylor Mar[s]h has observed. The differences are mostly in nuance, not substance.
I'm not sure what it means when one is against the Iraq war on principle but votes just like someone believed to not be against the war, especially during a time period when the President who took the country to war had a lower approval rating in the polls (2004-2007) than when Sen. Obama originally opposed the war (Oct 2002). All I can say is that if this is not triangulation then I don't know what is, but then again I am sure that the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary Rulebook might feature a different conclusion.
If this interests you, you can find dozens more articles by Eriposte at The Left Coaster; you can also find my overview of his work in an earlier diary
A final note. As a preemptive measure, I accept the label of "hack" before this discussion starts. If you have anything of substance to add beyond agreeing with me on that vastly important point, please add your thoughts!
