Obama Bashing Thread

WOULD YOU CALL THIS AN OBAMA LIE?...

Ah ha! A bit of deception there, wouldn't you say? Obama doesn't take money from the oil companies. That would be illegal. But if the top oil company executives want to round up some contributions from friends and employees ...well that's just fine.

McWhitey now has three threads, each a "bashing" thread, one devoted to Obama, one devoted to Clinton, and one devoted to McCain.

He has shown up as the first "respondent" in each of the two threads devoted to Democrats to provide the first "bash" at them. There is no such post of his in the McCain thread.

Fair and balanced, a la Fox News.

McWhitey now has three threads, each a "bashing" thread, one devoted to Obama, one devoted to Clinton, and one devoted to McCain.

He has shown up as the first "respondent" in each of the two threads devoted to Democrats to provide the first "bash" at them. There is no such post of his in the McCain thread.

Fair and balanced, a la Fox News.

McGentrix wrote:

WOULD YOU CALL THIS AN OBAMA LIE?...

Ah ha! A bit of deception there, wouldn't you say? Obama doesn't take money from the oil companies. That would be illegal. But if the top oil company executives want to round up some contributions from friends and employees ...well that's just fine.

No, I don't call this a lie. Individuals can donate how they wish. CEO's aren't excluded from the political process just because they are CEO's, BUT, I would consider a donation from an industry group or an oil PAC as taking money from an oil company. If you dig that up, you got him dead to rights.

McWhitey now has three threads, each a "bashing" thread, one devoted to Obama, one devoted to Clinton, and one devoted to McCain.

He has shown up as the first "respondent" in each of the two threads devoted to Democrats to provide the first "bash" at them. There is no such post of his in the McCain thread.

Fair and balanced, a la Fox News.

Where's the Nadar thread?

When it comes to being labeled "a liberal," Barack Obama is dismissive. "Oh, he's liberal. He's liberal," he said recently in describing a characterization of him by Republicans. "Let me tell you something. There's nothing liberal about wanting to reduce money in politics. It's common sense. . . . There's nothing liberal about wanting to make sure that everybody has health care."

Mr. Obama needs to inoculate himself against the claim that he's a liberal. For the past quarter-century it has been consistently the most effective charge made by Republicans against Democrats. America is a center-right country and in modern times has not elected a thoroughgoing liberal as president (Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton ran as moderate Democrats). The problem is that, by any reasonable standard, Mr. Obama is an orthodox liberal.

National Journal rated him as the most liberal person in the Senate in 2007, and for good reason. On economic policy, Mr. Obama favors higher income, Social Security and corporate taxes. He supports massive increases in domestic spending and greater government regulation of the economy. He favors a significantly larger role for the federal government in health care. He opposes the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mr. Obama has criticized the Supreme Court's decision to uphold a partial birth abortion ban, and he wants to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. He voted against John Roberts and Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court. In Illinois, Mr. Obama supported banning the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns. And he supports granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

On national security matters, Mr. Obama voted to deny legal immunity to telecom companies that have cooperated with the government in warrantless wiretapping of suspected terrorists. He wants to grant habeas corpus rights to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. He supports a full-scale withdrawal from Iraq. And he says, in his first year in office, he would meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea without preconditions.

It's no wonder that Mr. Obama has been endorsed by Moveon.org - one of the most radical groups within the liberal universe.

Adding to Mr. Obama's problems is his close association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., whose anti-American rantings are the kind of thing routinely said by the far left.

For whatever reason, Mr. Obama has failed to do what Mr. Clinton did in 1992 - run as a "new" Democrat who favors some conservative policies (ending welfare as we know it, supporting free trade, criticizing the "butchers of Beijing," and famously criticizing Sister Souljah).

Since Mr. Obama's record reveals him to be a doctrinaire liberal, he dismisses ideological labels as simplistic, misleading and outmoded. When asked if he's comfortable with the liberal label, he says, "This is what I would call old politics. This is the stuff we're trying to get rid of . . . Those old categories don't work, and they're preventing us from solving problems."

In fact, "liberal" and "conservative" can be useful (if incomplete) monikers - a shorthand way of describing where an individual stands on issues and, as importantly, their political philosophy. They are an indicator of a person's underlying assumptions, the propositions they embrace or reject. Mr. Obama's effort to present himself as a post-ideological figure is an effort to avoid an important national debate. And John McCain should not let Mr. Obama (assuming he wins the Democratic nomination) get away with it.

But because the political environment and challenges facing America have changed significantly since Ronald Reagan was president, it will not be enough for Mr. McCain to invoke the word "liberal" against Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain needs to present a compelling case on the foundational beliefs that divide liberalism and conservatism - on matters like the size and role of government, competition and accountability in education, health care, and whether higher taxes encourage or retard economic growth. Mr. McCain also needs to force a debate on the proper role of the judiciary, the protection owed to unborn children and the rights owed to unlawful enemy combatants, and whether promoting liberty should be a central aim of American foreign policy in combating militant Islam.

Mr. McCain needs to become an educator-in-chief on matters of political philosophy. He won't be able to fulfill that role nearly as well as Reagan, who was a philosophical conservative in the way that Mr. McCain (and most other Republican politicians) is not. And Mr. McCain himself has, until now, been sui generis on matters of conservatism. His challenge is to make his case well enough to convince Americans not only that Mr. Obama is a liberal, but that having a liberal in the White House would do real damage to our country.

Mr. McCain has overcome harder challenges than this one.

As President, Obama will renegotiate NAFTA - which Senator Clinton supported as First Lady

"But just because you can say something doesn't mean you should say something," he said. "And I think that we have not talked enough about the harmful images and messages that are sent."

<snip>

"I think that all of us have become a little complicit in this kind of relaxed attitude toward some pretty offensive things," Obama said. "And I hope this prompts some self-reflection on the part of all of us."

I have tried to get over my unease surrounding Barack Obama's response to the sermons and writings of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. But the unanswered questions remain.

I am a strong supporter of and a substantial fundraiser for Hillary Clinton for president (though in this column I speak only for myself). I still believe she should and will be the Democratic nominee. But if Sen. Obama wins the nomination, he needs to understand that this issue goes well beyond Clinton partisans. Now is the time to address these questions, not later.


Clearly Mr. Obama does not share the extremist views of Rev. Wright. He is a tolerant and honorable person. But that is not the issue. The questions remain: Why did he stay a member of the congregation? Why didn't he speak up earlier? And why did he reward Rev. Wright with a campaign position even after knowing of his comments?

My concerns were retriggered when I read for the first time three excerpts from Rev. Wright's sermons published several weeks ago in a national news magazine:

- "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
-- Sept. 16, 2001 (the first Sunday after 9/11)

- "The government . . . wants us to sing God Bless America. No, no, no. God damn America; that's in the bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human."
-- 2003

- "The United States of White America."
-- July 22, 2007

As I read and reread these words, I keep thinking: If my rabbi ever uttered such hateful words from the pulpit about America and declared all Palestinians to be terrorists, I have no doubt I would have withdrawn immediately from his congregation.

In his eloquent Philadelphia speech, Mr. Obama likened Rev. Wright to a beloved, but politically extremist, family member with whom one profoundly disagrees but whose rage one understands.

But this comparison just doesn't work for me. I don't get a chance to choose my family members. I do get a chance to choose my spiritual or religious leader and my congregation. And I do not have to remain silent or, more importantly, expose my children to the spiritual leader of my congregation who spews hate that offends my conscience.


Mr. Obama made a choice to join the church and to ask Rev. Wright to marry him and his bride. He said for the first time a few weeks ago that had Rev. Wright not recently resigned as pastor of the church, he would have withdrawn. But that only reraised the same questions: Why didn't he act before the resignation?

If he did not want to withdraw from the church - and I truly try to understand his personal difficulty doing so - then why not at least speak out publicly and say, in the famous phrase of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy: "No - this is unacceptable."

Furthermore, after knowing about some of these sermons and having serious problems with some of their messages, why did Mr. Obama still decide to appoint Rev. Wright to his official presidential campaign religious advisory committee?

Some have suggested that any Clinton supporters who continue to raise this issue are "playing the race card" or taking the "low" road.

When I said on CNN recently that concerns about the Wright-Obama issue were "appropriate" to continue to be discussed, my friend Joe Klein of Time Magazine said, "Lanny, Lanny, you're spreading the poison right now" and that an "honorable person" would "stay away from this stuff."

Attacking the motives of those who feel this discomfort about Senator Obama's response or nonresponse to Reverend Wright's comments is not just unfair and wrong. It also misses the important electoral point about winning the general election in November: This issue is not going away. If many loyal, progressive Democrats remain troubled by this issue, then there must be even more unease among key swing voters - soft "Reagan Democrats," independents and moderate Republicans - who will decide the 2008 election.

One thing is for sure: If Mr. Obama doesn't show a willingness to try to answer all the questions now, John McCain and the Republican attack machine will not waste a minute pressuring him to do so if he is the Democratic Party's choice in the fall.

But by then, it may be too late.