The Multi-faceted (two-faced) Barry Obama

[Smurf-Herder]

Great editorial - by a Democrat.

Will the real Obama please stand?
New York Daily News - Michael Goodwin
Saturday, July 12th 2008, 6:38 PM

The headline in The Washington Post was intriguing: "Obama's Ideology Proving Difficult to Pinpoint." The article turned out to be a charitable discussion of whether the Democratic nominee is moving away from leftist positions he took during the primaries and toward the political center for the general election.

Of course he is. Enough to produce, as someone put it, whiplash. So let's give the topic a headline that directly addresses the doubts: Just who is Barack Obama?

Is he the inspirational juggernaut of the early primaries, the man who promised "change we can believe in" and a new era in American politics? Or is he one more politician whose actions often contradict his words?

Put another way, what does he believe in?

Damned if I know.

Once upon a time, I thought I did. Obama was the graceful rookie from Illinois who came out of nowhere to become the rock star of '08. His biracial heritage, Harvard Law School education and vast ambition created the perfect image of a post-racial, post-ideological agent of change. He would not be tied to the old ideas or the old ways of doing things.

It was a promise, exquisitely delivered, that allowed him to grab an early delegate lead and hold on to narrowly defeat Hillary (The Invincible) Clinton.

But there were hints Obama was not what he claimed.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright was a big one. By the end of the primaries, Obama was stumbling and on the defensive. And now he has become yet another candidate altogether in the post-primary period.

On defining issues - security wiretapping, gun control, campaign finance, Iran and Iraq - he has done partial or full about-faces. Hardly a day goes by that he doesn't attack John McCain in typical partisan fashion.

And when he denies with a straight face that he's changing anything, Obama gives new meaning to chutzpah.

The changes have been so dramatic that many liberal activists are expressing buyers' remorse. Some are demanding their contributions back and vow not to support Obama until he adopts his old positions.

For me, a centrist Democrat and a hawk on security, most of his new positions are better than those he abandoned. But they're not believable. They create doubts about whether he has core beliefs.

Someone who can shift positions so quickly on so many important issues that will face the next President comes off as a man who doesn't have fixed convictions. Pragmatism has to be guided by principles. A man who believes in everything believes in nothing, and that's a formula for chaos in the White House.

Yes, I know, McCain has gone back and forth on tax cuts, immigration and some other issues. But McCain is a known quality. His POW heroics and his long career in Washington are universal fixed points of reference.

Like him or not, we think we know who John McCain is. It's a belief that doesn't depend exclusively on specific positions. As long as his policy shifts are few and explainable, the sense of who he is remains intact. It's something to trust.

Obama, without points of reference and a long career, doesn't have much room to maneuver. He is also limited by his promises of sweeping change in both results and process.

As William Galston of the Brookings Institution told The Post: "Successful campaigns tell stories that provide the framework of meaning and significance for particular policy proposals."

In other words, policies are expressions of the narrative and must be consistent with it. They are the meat on the bones.

That's where Obama has failed. In his rush to appeal to moderate voters, Obama has demolished his narrative. Political expediency is ordinary, and by embracing it, he has proven himself an eloquent but ordinary politician.

That's who Barack Obama is.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/07/12/2008-07-12_will_the_real_obama_please_stand.html

[doctordog]

Good Story

[Hog Trash]

I'm sure you know what all the sheep will say?!

Their standard party line which is;

"RIGHT-WING XENOPHOBE NEOCON RACIST PROPAGANDA".

"BLEAT-BLEAT-BLEAT-BLEAT-BLEAT-BLEAT-BLEAT-BLEAT"

[LadyMod at scam.com]

Not the Right Hogwash, but the far Left maybe.


Obama Supporters on the Far Left Cry Foul (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/us/politics/13liberal.html?th&emc=th)

By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Published: July 13, 2008

PORTLAND, Ore. — In the breathless weeks before the Oregon presidential primary in May, Martha Shade did what thousands of other people here did: she registered as a Democrat so she could vote for Senator Barack Obama.

Now, however, after critics have accused Mr. Obama of shifting positions on issues like the war in Iraq, the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants, gun control and the death penalty — all in what some view as a shameless play to a general election audience — Ms. Shade said she planned to switch back to the Green Party.

“I’m disgusted with him,” said Ms. Shade, an artist. “I can’t even listen to him anymore. He had such an opportunity, but all this ‘audacity of hope’ stuff, it’s blah, blah, blah. For all the independents he’s going to gain, he’s going to lose a lot of progressives.”

Of course, that depends on how you define progressives.

As Ms. Shade herself noted, while alarm may be spreading among some Obama supporters, whether left-wing bloggers or purists holding Mr. Obama’s feet to the fire on one issue or another, the reaction among others has been less than outrage.

For all the idealism and talk of transformation that Mr. Obama has brought to the Democratic Party — he managed to draw a crowd of more than 70,000 here in May — there is also a wide streak of pragmatism, even among many grass-roots activists, in a party long vexed by factionalism.

“We’re frustrated by it, but we understand,” said Mollie Ruskin, 22, who grew up in Baltimore and is spending the summer here as a fellow with Politicorps, a program run by the Bus Project, a local nonprofit that trains young people to campaign for progressive candidates. “He’s doing it so he can get into office and do the things he believes in.”

Nate Gulley, 23, who grew up in Cleveland and is also here as a Politicorps fellow, said too much was being made of Mr. Obama’s every move.

“It’s important not to get swept up in ‘Is Obama posturing?’ ” Mr. Gulley said. “It’s self-evident that he’s a different kind of candidate.”

Bob Fertik, president of Democrats.com, a progressive Web site, started asking his readers last month to pledge money to an escrow fund for Mr. Obama, as opposed to contributing to him outright. The idea was to make Mr. Obama rethink his decision to support the Bush administration’s wiretapping measure.

Mr. Obama initially said he would try to filibuster a vote, but on Wednesday he was among 69 senators who voted for the measure, which to many liberals represents a flagrant abuse of privacy rights. The legislation grants legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the wiretapping program.

So far, 675 people have pledged $101,375 to Mr. Fertik’s escrow fund, money that theoretically would be donated to Mr. Obama once he showed a firm commitment to progressive values, Mr. Fertik said.

But Mr. Fertik also said that while Mr. Obama’s change on the spying issue upset some supporters, it was not necessarily emblematic of a troubling shift to the center. He said he continued to support the senator, though he added, “We don’t see the need to close our eyes and hold our noses until November.”

Still, others warned that Mr. Obama risked being viewed as someone who parses positions without taking a principled stand.

“I’m not saying we’re there yet, but that’s the danger,” said David Sirota, a liberal political analyst and author. “I don’t think there’s disillusion. I think there’s an education process that takes place, and that’s a good thing. He is a transformative politician, but he is still a politician.”

Joe McCraw, 27, a video engineer from San Carlos, Calif., who writes three liberal blogs, said Mr. Obama’s shift on the domestic spying measure was a watershed moment.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen him lie to us, and it makes me feel disappointed,” Mr. McCraw said. “I thought he was going to stand up there, stand by his campaign promises like he said he would, and it turns out he’s another politician.”

Many Obama supporters said the most vocal complaining about various policy positions was largely relegated to liberal bloggers and people who might otherwise support Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, or Dennis J. Kucinich, the liberal Ohio congressman who dropped out of the presidential race earlier this year.

“I think it’s accentuated by the fact that Obama’s appeal is an appeal to idealism,” said Kari Chisholm, who runs a blog, blueoregon.com, and does Internet strategy for Democratic candidates. “They believe their ideology is the only idealism and Obama’s is very mainstream. I’m not surprised they’re getting a little cranky. They’ve always been kind of cranky. A mainstream Democrat has always been too mainstream for them.”

Some of Mr. Obama’s supporters say he is less vulnerable to accusations of flip-flopping on issues because his campaign ultimately has been built on his biography and philosophy.

“I don’t think the test on him is in an explicitly narrow set of check boxes that have to get filled,” said Kevin Looper, executive director of Our Oregon, a liberal advocacy group. “I think it’s about do his campaign and his message embody serious changes for the direction of the country?”

Mr. Looper and many other supporters said Mr. Obama was solid on core Democratic concerns like the environment, social and economic justice and how to balance taxes among economic groups. Of course, his stands on more specific issues appeal to many supporters, too.

Rhys Warburton, a 25-year-old Brooklyn resident who teaches earth science at a public high school, said he supported Mr. Obama because he thought the senator was more likely to end the Iraq war. If Mr. Obama takes a few steps to the center that will not change his opinion, he said, and “it doesn’t make the others any better or more attractive to vote for.”

Before the Oregon primary in May, Mr. Obama held a rally here in Portland that made news not for what the senator said but for what he saw: more than 70,000 people came to hear him speak on a bright Sunday along the Willamette River.

The startling size of the crowd, followed by Mr. Obama’s resounding win here on May 20, helped cement his status as the presumptive nominee. And for some, even far beyond Oregon, it confirmed what Mr. Obama had been telling voters from the start: that he really is different.

“Seventy-five thousand people do not attend political rallies unless something truly magical is happening,” Bob Blanchard wrote on May 18 in the comment section accompanying an account of the rally on The New York Times’s Web site. “Our great country will soon close the book on ‘government by division,’ and embrace ‘government by inclusion.’ ”

Asked last week whether Mr. Obama’s vote on the surveillance law or any other recent statements or actions had altered how he felt about the candidate, Mr. Blanchard, of North Smithfield, R.I., said “absolutely not.”

“When are these people going to go, anyway?” Mr. Blanchard said of left-wing critics he believes have hurt Democrats in past elections. “My attitude is lighten up on the guy. We want to win. Moving to the center is not a crime in this country.”

Ms. Shade, the Green-turned-Democrat-returned-Green voter, spoke about Mr. Obama while leaning out her second-floor apartment window, where she has placed homemade signs urging the impeachment of President Bush. Others say “Free Gaza” and “Occupation is Terrorism.” She said twice that the American political system was “rotten.”

“You realize,” Ms. Shade said, her voice fading with resignation, “that you’re talking to somebody who’s pretty far out of the mainstream.”



.

[Smurf-Herder]

Obama seeks to be all things to all people. Now he's going to Europe to speak, possibly at the Brandenburg Gate - the Europeans love him more than followers in the US do. Even though they know less about him than people in the US. Then on to Jordan and Israel, before Iraq and Afghanistan.

You'd think this guy is running for World President. A man who has essentially come out of nowhere, nationally and internationally speaking.

Obama is the scariest US Presidential candidate I've seen since Lyndon LaRouche.

[Independent Harry]

Obama seeks to be all things to all people. Now he's going to Europe to speak, possibly at the Brandenburg Gate - the Europeans love him more than followers in the US do. Even though they know less about him than people in the US. Then on to Jordan and Israel, before Iraq and Afghanistan.

You'd think this guy is running for World President. A man who has essentially come out of nowhere, nationally and internationally speaking.

Obama is the scariest US Presidential candidate I've seen since Lyndon LaRouche.

I'm curious to know what makes him so scary?

[Smurf-Herder]

I'm curious to know what makes him so scary?

You got A.D.D.?

I guess you haven't been paying any attention to the hundreds of posts on this board about it over the past few months?

[Independent Harry]

You got A.D.D.?

I guess you haven't been paying any attention to the hundreds of posts on this board about it over the past few months?

Sorry, I just cant seem to keep it all straight. I mean lets sum up at this point shall we. I have a life outside what you post on tihs board ya know...

[LadyMod at scam.com]

Obama seeks to be all things to all people. Now he's going to Europe to speak, possibly at the Brandenburg Gate - the Europeans love him more than followers in the US do. Even though they know less about him than people in the US. Then on to Jordan and Israel, before Iraq and Afghanistan.

You'd think this guy is running for World President. A man who has essentially come out of nowhere, nationally and internationally speaking.

Obama is the scariest US Presidential candidate I've seen since Lyndon LaRouche.

Well, maybe he's the "Anti-Christ".

If so, nothing is going to stop him for at least 7.5 years.


Lady Mod

[Smurf-Herder]

Sorry, I just cant seem to keep it all straight. I mean lets sum up at this point shall we. I have a life outside what you post on tihs board ya know...

Go to any thread with him as a subject.

I don't waste my time rehashing every single point - with someone I know I've already wasted my time with on many occasions. We've already been through this before.

[Cat slave]

What I find scarier is that people dont see how he is manipulating everyone.
The rats running into the sea thought they were following something beautiful
and thats what I see here. A new tune for each group but the same march
to destruction.

That said, I feel absolutely no better about McAmnesty. He scares the hell
out of me. Hes old, stupid, dull and his time in the senate means nothing.
Look how long many others have had their contracts renewed by re election.
It frequently means nothing more than enough people were bought off through
entitlements, special favors or even financially, ear marks, pork and having
enough money to squash a competitor.

[oneway]

I hope all Democrats understand this "barry Obama" seek affiliation, he is the most needy attention getter since Bill Clinton. A man's upbringing is 99% of what he will be. Barry has done very well considering the severe abandonment he faced through hids entire childhood. thank God for Grandma & Grandpa.

Now he looks to please as many people as he can to earn approval, the crowds applause as a cheap substitute for love.

He reminds me of the Tommy charachter from the Who's Rock opera.
His skills at reading a teleprompter (at pinball) can only last so long.

Little Sally is mad at the stitches she earned at the Obama rally and wants big payback for not delivering his promises.