One more lurch towards the right from you, Mr. Obama, and I'll vote for Nader. And I do not like Ralph Nader.
Barack Obama's shift to the right (from left towards center is to the right!) has been thought about, talked about, written about, and griped about. One diarist wrote about deal-breakers. Another wrote about NARAL and Roe v Wade and did a good piece on "mental distress." Many diaries have written about FISA, and many more have been written about Obama's reaching out to / pandering to the evangelicals. Lots of people have voiced concerns about Obama's assorted flip-flops, and many folks have apologised for them in the spirit of nuanced discussions and compromise and getting elected.
Enough already!
Nobody that I know of has yet pointed out that in the rush to get to some christian political center, Obama is busily trampling the rights of women and minorities. Oh, yeah - and men's rights, too.
Hasn't anyone noticed that Obama's new position on choice for women leaves out the "choice" part? Regardless of NARAL's opinion, women should have the right to choose what happens to their bodies. The evangelicals he is currently courting are the mainstays of the anti-abortion movement. Those are the folks who think that women who become pregnant from rape should still have those babies. They're also the folks who claim that all aborted fetuses should have become adopted babies, but do not themselves adopt babies. We know who they are - the hypocrites of the right. Mercifully, Obama's latest massaging of their weenies won't get him pregnant, will it? But then again, he won't have to worry about it, since he's advocating a position that will help the wingnuts get a foot in the door to pass ever-more restrictive abortion laws, eventually resulting in banning all abortions.
Not-a-doctor Obama is, as far as I know, not qualified to determine the damage done to a woman by mental distress (aka stress). Even men who are associated with women wanting late-term abortions experience mental distress - and Obama has never been in their shoes, either. But it's mostly those weak broads who get distressed, isn't it? Real men eat stress for lunch and build strong muscles 12 ways from the meal. Denigrating mental distress does not make it go away, and telling women (and their male partners) that they can't choose to have an abortion because their only difficulty is mental distress shows that Obama knows less about mental health care than about pandering. Hint: mental health goes along with dental health and vision health. It may not be covered by insurance, but it's required for life. The last time I read the Declaration of Independence, it said something about the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Must Obama stomp women's (and men's) rights on his way to the Presidency?
As for the rights of minorities, hasn't anyone noticed that quite a bit of the illegal wiretapping was done to people who might be associating with "terrorists?" My uninformed guess is that those "terrorists" are mostly men with dark skins. Not as dark as his, and from a different culture, but dark nonetheless. It's still racism! It's not as overt as that of the late Jesse Helms, and it's aimed at a different skin colour, but it's still racism. Letting the telecoms off the hook in a weakened FISA bill opens the door for more of the same. Arab-Americans, kiss your rights goodbye. You still don't have the right skin tones to use them. Obama's explanation of his FISA-flop was that it was a better bill that what we have. OK, I'll buy that - but I'll also keep in mind that being shot is probably a better way to be murdered than being strangled. In other words, bad is still bad.
At what point, Mr. Obama, do you expect the christian religious people to accept you? Are you planning to come out against gay marriage? Will you give a few bucks to faith-based (always christian) organisations and tell us that since you gave some, taxpayers should give more? Will you be cozying up to the manipulators who run the religious right by denying the existence of global climate change? Will you be trying to be just like Lieberman, and go from Democrat to Dixiecrat to Republican eventually? What rights do you think are too important to walk on? Do you think that chipping away at the rights of all Americans will result in a better country?
How much can you try to be just like McCain before your base gives up on you? Reaching across the aisle is a good thing, but only as long as you remember that it's not necessary to smack your original supporters while you're reaching.