No, not me — I’m a bit too long in the tooth to drink during the week. 90% of Obama supporters had to have been hitting the sauce last night, however: If anyone was thrown under a bus during Obama’s hastily arranged press conference yesterday, it was them.
These poor folk have been arguing since early March that Obama was 100% correct in not disavowing Jeremiah Wright. Wright’s words were “speaking truth to power” after all, his love for America manifest due to his service in the Navy and Marine Corps, and his racism wasn’t racism, it was simply “the way the black church does things”.
Boy, Obama put the kibosh on their feeble attempts at rationalizing Wright, didn’t he? And in the process of doing so, made himself look like a fool. No one with half a brain could possibly believe that Obama saw anything different in Wright’s performance at the National Press Club than what we’ve all seen since the “God damn America” clips came to light, and certainly not anything different than what he’s seen during his twenty-year relationship with Wright.
Ah, but Wright called Obama a liar, you see. And Barack took offense at that, and fired back with both barrels.
This guy is such a lightweight. But hey, Jimmy Carter was a lightweight too, and when America was “weary” in the 70’s, we ushered in Carter’s agenda of “change”. Fat lot of good that did us.
Ah well. My party has all but nominated Obama, and the lefties have convinced superdelegates that there will be riots and decades of backlash from black voters and young voters if the will of the people lefty caucus activists isn’t followed. Welcome to the new Democratic party, my friends: Controlled lock, stock, and barrel by the very folks you don’t want in charge of national affairs.
Filed under: Barack Obama, Democrats, Election 2008, Netroots, Politics
Well, those on the right aren’t much better. Which is why I swing conservative in the first place. The smaller the government, the less they interfere in our lives and the less damage they do.
Agreed, Brogarn. Which is why I find it so interesting that Republicans selected McCain, of all people for this cycle — He’s hardly the mouth breathing hyper-Republican that I expected to come out of the GOP primary this year.
Let’s see, a hyper-Liberal, inexperienced candidate with flawed judgment and questionable associations who talks a good game vs. a bona-fide war hero who has bucked the GOP at several turns over the years. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, eh?
McCain is only in the race because we couldn’t find anyone better.
As usual, American voters are left with selecting the lessor evil rather than the greater good.
Concerning Obama and Wright, I see it exactly the same way as you, Joe. It’s all good when Wright was calling all of White America racists. Obama couldn’t disown Wright any more than his racist grandma. But when he insults Obama, then it’s disowning time.
As I wrote in my own piece on this subject, grandma better watch what she says.
You should read Rove’s column about McCain today, though. The guy is a class act, with a stellar character. I admire him, even though I don’t always agree with him on issues. He will make an outstanding president, he will be a credit to the office.
Obama is a liar, a charlatan, a race-baiting hate-monger who used Wright for his own political ends, and with whom, I believe, Obama actually agrees. He just can’t say so.
I’m waiting for Wright to REALLY get pissed off and break out videos of Obama clapping and cheering and nodding to one of the very sermons he’s denouncing now.
There are probably witnesses. We all know Obama heard plenty, and there are people who can prove it. He better watch out, calling Wright a liar. The feces is really going to hit the fan if he pisses off the Rev too much.
Ya, I read that article by Rove as well. I don’t trust Rove any farther than I can throw him but if even part of that story is true, McCain is a very honorable man.
As far as Obama goes, I think a spotlight on him and Chicago’s political machine is going to destroy him. Here’s a good write up at Power and Control by M Simon:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2008/04/gnip-gnop.html
Doc, I will check out that Rove piece right after I post this comment.
I agree that John McCain is a class act, and I have the utmost respect for his service to our country, both militarily and politically. But I feel very strongly against illegal immigration and McCain’s history on that subject is unacceptable, in my opinion. I may end up voting for him in November, but I’m not making any endorsements.
“He better watch out, calling Wright a liar. The feces is really going to hit the fan if he pisses off the Rev too much.”
That shouldn’t be too hard now that Mrs. Obama is starting to speak out on the subject.
Joe, why do you consider Obama “hyper-Liberal?” I don’t see much difference between his policy positions and those of Hillary Clinton (and I don’t see either of them as extreme liberals).
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Welcome back, twc my friend.
If, in fact, Obama isn’t hyper-Liberal, why have the hyper-Liberal netroots taken up his banner even while he’s triangulated around them?
If he’s not hyper-Liberal, why did MoveOn.org endorse him, and why are they supporting him so strongly?
If he’s not hyper-Liberal, why is Senator Clinton, whose policies you admit are very close to his, denigrated as a “GOP shill” who uses “right wing talking points” to draw a contrast between herself and your candidate?
I could go on and on here. Obama himself casts Obama as the hyper-Liberal candidate in these primaries, and his history lines up with his narrative.
Ed Morrissey offers a different opinion on that subject.
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/05/02/analysis-obama-clinton-equally-liberal/
Thanks, Joe. Was in the other hemisphere for a bit — nice to be back to spring.
I don’t really understand analyzing where someone is ideologically by reviewing how certain groups line up. FWIW, though, I think that progressives and liberals have generally favored Obama over Clinton for three reasons: (1) the war, (2) a desire for greater change generally and a desire to “move on” from what are seen as the relatively unproductive politics of the last 15 years (apart from the Clinton economy which was pretty good), and (3) a response to the tactical moves of the Clinton campaign in which she has tried to position herself to the right of Obama as the shot-and-a-beer, raised-huntin’, night-shift-working blue collar hero.
The first probably is in this case a liberal/conservative divide, although it need not have been. It was very possible (I would say proper) to have opposed the war from a conservative perspective. Many did. And vice-versa — in fact, I would say that the neoconservative rationale for this war was about the most fuzzy-headed, pie-in-the-sky, unrealistically utopian application of American power and expenditure of American blood and treasure since… well, maybe ever. At the very least since Vietnam (which came out of an entirely different Cold War mindset).
The second is not particularly ideological, except to the extent that the progressive “netroots” are generally disdainful of the lost opportunities of the non-economic Bill Clinton legacy of school uniforms and welfare reform.
The last is about campaign atmospherics, not policy matters. In fact, on some issues Clinton goes left of Obama when she thinks it works better — such as health care reform. She has, however, campaigned against Obama “like a Republican,” in that she has used the possibility that they may raise certain “issues” (political points, actually, not substantive policy issues) as a rationalization to use lines of argument to attack him that are essentially conservative Republican arguments: he’s not qualified to be POTUS, he’s elitist and condescending, he’s just the black candidate (though they themselves had to stop directly using that one pretty quickly), he’s culturally liberal. The photo of Hillary Clinton sitting elbow-to-elbow with Richard Mellon Scaife spoke volumes and proved, once again, that politics really can make for strange bedfellows.
In fact, to my mind, neither one of them is extremely liberal. Both are more or less early 21st-century conventional Democratic national politicians in their policy positions, and are in a pretty similar place on the ideolocial spectrum — especially if you discount (what I consider to be) Hillary’s obviously insincere positions taken for partisan political positioning such as her support of a constitutional amendment against flag-burning and her support of the Iraq war.
I haven’t had a chance to read the article Red links to just above, but I will try to do so. Thanks for the input, Red.
You’d be surprised how closely some folks in the bottom half of the planet are following this race. As they see it, it affects them, too.
[...] My good friend Lance at A Second Hand Conjecture: Joe Tobacco is now a registered Democrat. Reading this I am thinking he is having some second [...]