I know this will come as a shock to longtime readers, but I've secretly been a bit of a skeptic about Barack Obama.

With omnipresent calls for Hillary and her “shrinking band of paranoid holdouts" to "let it go," "move on," etc., I wanted to reaffirm why some of us are stickin’ to our Annie Oakley accessories... even as Sen. Clinton embarrasses herself with primary victories in podunk states like California, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania, is that even a state? Sounds like Shrillary pulled a Keyser Söze with the names of her former campaign manager and the dim bulb that lights her clingy, low-wattage supporters. And what's up with this "Michigan" and "Florida" of which she speaks? You ever heard of them? Me neither. Man, that chick is crazy!

* * *

In Barack Obama, I see a lot to like.

He really is smart. He really is charismatic (even if he's wearing on me more and more as the campaign goes on). And he really does offer a healthy opportunity to re-imagine what a President of the United States looks like.

Hillary Clinton, too, is smart. She really is charismatic (she's impressing me more and more as the campaign goes on). And she really does offer a healthy opportunity to re-imagine what a President of the United States looks like.

Oops. I left out one huge differentiator: unlike Hillary, Obama voted against the war.

I know he did, because a Google search on "Obama voted against the war" turns up thousands of citations.

Oh, wait a minute. He didn't get to the Senate until 2004, and the AUMF vote was on October 11, 2002. Hmm....

But it was still brave for him to speak out against the pending vote in the thick of his U.S. Senate campaign. He said as much in a February debate, and his website states: "As a candidate for the United States Senate in 2002, Obama put his political career on the line to oppose going to war in Iraq, and warned of 'an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs, and undetermined consequences.'"

Oh dear, he didn't start his U.S. Senate campaign until January of 2003. But who are you going to believe, Barack Obama or your lyin' calendar?

But it surely was gutsy to make such a controversial speech in front of the unblinking eye and unflappable ears of the video cameras and tape recorders.

Unfortunately, it seems there's no audio or video of his historic speech available. Or, perhaps, it was recorded on a phonautograph. So, Obama had to "re-enact" part of the speech, complete with echo effects, to include it in a campaign ad.

OK, no A/V. But Chicago is a great newspaper town, whose intrepid, fedora-decked reporters wrote reams of....

Dang. As best I can tell from extensive online searching, there are no contemporaneous articles about the speech anywhere.

But he definitely delivered it on 10/2/02, before the AUMF vote. Or on 10/26/02, after the AUMF vote. On that much, the record (if there were one) is clear.

And in the event that someone had recorded or written about the speech, it was a perilous one to deliver a quarter-year before he declared for a hotly contested U.S. Senate run. Definitely "putting his political career on the line."

Except that The Audacity of Hope describes his U.S. Senate run as a cakewalk against weak and wounded opposition, such a breeze that it didn't make a proper test for his self-styled new approach to politics — you know, that post-partisan approach that's completely different from Bill Clinton's "third way" because....

Whatever. He has stood steadfastly behind those original words. Like in 2004, when he said "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage" ($). Um...

In any case, he's certain that if he had been in the Senate that he would have voted against the war. No one can take that away from him.



Alright, alright. We can't be certain of how he would have voted. But at least we're certain that the U.N. did not want the United States to engage in the brinksmanship that Hillary and others engaged in by authorizing the war powers.

Hans Blix:




Well, sure, there's that. But when Obama did get to the Senate, he differentiated himself from Hillary by...

What? Their voting records are "virtually identical"!? Still, when Obama made those votes he was being an awesome, young, transformative progressive. When Hillary made them, she was old, machine-like, and totally Republican about it. How could anyone fail to see the difference?

The cynics among us might speculate that Obama's not-in-the-Senate, not-during-his-campaign, unrecorded, and not-backed-up-by-his-future-votes speech was in part a smart gamble on setting himself apart from the pack, as he considered a run for national office.

But Obama wouldn't stake out a position just for future political "optics," would he?




Maybe. But how was that unrecorded, unreported, re-enacted speech of Obama's about a potential Iraq War?

It was great.

This speech had it all. It was bold. It showed 20/20 foresight. And it was partisan:



So, why now — with the mics, the cameras, and the reporters in place, and the country resoundingly agreeing that the Bush years have been a long national nightmare — does Obama persist in equivalating, on selling us the myth so accurately termed by fellow-blogger shystee as "the absolute fabrication that the problem with Washington is excessive partisanship"?

(to be continued)

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(Got a weird error when posting, and this isn't showing up in "My Posts." This reply shows up, but not the OP. Strange.)

of nuclear weapons.

:crazy:

OBLITERATION :crazy:


:nuke: :nuke:

During his 2004 Senate campaign, Obama stated that he had not ruled out military action against Iran. In a meeting with the Chicago Tribune editorial board, Obama stated: "The big question is going to be, if Iran is resistant to these pressures, including economic sanctions, which I hope will be imposed if they do not cooperate, at what point are we going to take military action, if any?" Obama stressed that he would only use force as a last resort.<60> Obama has not declared a change in this stance since the 2004 campaign. In 2006, he called on Iran to "take some ownership for creating some stability" in Iraq.<61>

In an interview with NBC's Tim Russert on October 22, 2006, Obama said, "I think that military options have to be on the table when you're dealing with rogue states that have shown constant hostility towards the United States. The point that I would make, though, is that we have not explored all of our options...We have not explored any kind of dialogue with either Iran or North Korea, and I think that has been a mistake. As a consequence, we have almost no leverage over them."<62>

Speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on 2 March 2007, Obama stated that he regards Iran's government as "a threat to all of us," stating that the US "should take no option, including military action, off the table. Sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons."<63> Diplomacy would include "more determined U.S. diplomacy at the United Nations," "harnessing the collective power of our friends in Europe who are Iran's major trading partners," and "a cooperative strategy with Gulf States who supply Iran with much of the energy resources it needs."<64> He formulated a strategy of "direct engagement with Iran similar to the meetings we conducted with the Soviets at the height of the Cold War."<65>

In a September 2007 speech in Iowa, Obama voiced concern over Bush administration sabre-rattling vis-à-vis Iran:

...we hear eerie echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq in the way that the President and Vice President talk about Iran. ... They issue veiled threats. They suggest that the time for diplomacy and pressure is running out when we haven't even tried direct diplomacy. Well George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear — loud and clear — from the American people and the Congress: you don't have our support, and you don't have our authorization for another war.<66>

Obama has criticized Hillary Clinton for voting in favor of classifying the Iranian Quds Force as a terrorist organization, saying


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Barack_Obama

Deftly portrayed, damningly accurate.

Very nice of you to say!

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Thank-you

...kinda long with lots of paragraphs and words and what not. But very good anyway.

:)

Is that a fresh breeze I feel?

What is the thesis?

1. Obama is a liar
2. his supporters are dupes

Very smarmily written too, with a bunch of "gee whiz" and "oh my". Not the kind of writing which is going to endear me to somebody who is supporting a candidate I hate. Funny thing about that too. First, I have already voted, and donated. Second, no matter how much Obama is slimed, that does not make me like Hillary any more.

My candidate was Edwards from the beginning, and he was slimed pretty regularly on DU as well (and he seemed to deserve some of it too, I cannot defend everything he seems to have done). So I backed into support of Obama, and remain unimpressed by innuendo against him. I never said he was perfect, just much better than the two remaining alternatives.

Since I don't hate either candidate, it is easier for me to see merit when there is an OP that is either critical or supportive of one of the candidates. Most of what I see around here is just slime - the same thing repeated over and over again - much of it not based on facts at all.

I didn't read it as Obama is a liar, his supporters are dupes. I read it as a critique of of the political process. I saw how facts get fuzzy and stories are distorted in order for one candidate or the other to differentiate themselves.

I soundly reject the continuing and pervasive lie that Clinton is a warmonger, that she was for the war and he wasn't. It's BS. I do find an OP that points out that they are very close in terms of voting records and probable future course to have substance.

I intensely disliked Edwards, so I know how you feel about having a candidate in the race that you just can't stomach. I remain convinced that either Clinton or Obama would be a step in the right direction and light-years ahead of the current administration. Neither is perfect and neither is evil.

I don't think this article was meant to sway you at all. However it does appear factual and it won't hurt to be prepared for this dagger which will most certainly be drawn in the GE.

"That she was for the war and he wasn't."

That's just another way for her to excuse her IWR without taking responsibility for it. And it's not that I cannot stand Hillary, but that I find her adoption of many rightwing talking points and her pretense to care about the working class to be disgusting and dishonest. In the beginning of this campaign she refused to stand for anything except for fiscal responsibility and her own inevitability. It's was only Edwards campaign and the economic downturn that made her pretend to care about working people.

Plus Hillary WAS for the war and Obama wasn't. Those are the facts that Hillary and the OP are trying to slime out of.

Anything negative said about Obama is Clinton campaign BS. He could not possibly have made any errors or spun something so that it would make him look more favorable.

The media and most of the elected leadership bought the scandalous lies that were told in the run up to IWR. The vote was held three weeks before the election. No one, including Obama, knows how Obama would have voted on that resolution. The fact that he didn't have the opportunity to vote either way can not be construed to mean that he would have voted against it. The he sat out Kyl-Lieberman. If if he the anti-war candidate, why did he not vote on that one? At this point, they are one the same page and it is, frankly, a page I don't agree with.

I don't share your opinion on pretty much anything else you are saying about Clinton. She is flawed. Obama is flawed. You used the word hate in your previous post when referring to Clinton. I would suggest that hate clouds perception, hence we see things differently

An election where Clinton was not running. Hillary's speech in February of 2002, where she fought AGAINST Code Pink certainly had nothing to due with the election.

Hate clouds judgement? That certainly can be true, but the hate was not pre-existing. Bill and Hillary earned my hatred, by talking, governing and campaigning as Republican-lite. True, not in all ways, not totally, but more than enough to vastly prefer alternatives.

People get to the point where they feel that "anything Hillary says is BS" for the same reason they got to the point that "I know Bush is lying because his lips are moving". They have seen enough lies to always be suspicious. In this case it's pretty clear. Hillary could take responsibility for her Iraq vote, or she could try to dodge and deflect and tarnish the anti-war creds of her opponent. She chose the latter course instead of the high road.

I could counter that although it was not her election, there might have been ramifications for the party and others running. I wish she had not voted for it. I wish she had taken a stand. I wish the had not been so politicized and the press had not swallowed it whole. I wish many of our senators had taken a stand, but they didn't. They haven't done anything to stop it either and that group includes Obama at this point. I haven't heard either of them make the case for getting out of Iraq quickly and immediately.

I understand that many strongly dislike the Clintons and absolutely nothing can be said to sway them. Like I said, I didn't trust a single thing Edwards had to say. I had very strong doubts about his character and you have very strong feelings about hers.

Can we agree to disagree? I am going to vote for anyone who gets the democratic nomination. I would even vote for Edwards.

Peace.

If it was over, then you, me, Olbermann, Krugman, Lyons, Randi, etc., could all be on the same side. Given DU though, there's bound to be an "I told you so" faction no matter who wins the nomination, and another faction that will blast them whenever they are not perfectly progressive.

but nothing of substance about the campaign and the candidates.

A. Obama's adoption of RW talking points is nearly constant, and it's a big reason why some of us endorsed Hillary (instead) once Edwards left the race:

http://www.correntewire.com/obama_stump_speech_strategy_of_conciliation_considered_harmful
http://www.correntewire.com/triangulation_the_next_generation
http://www.correntewire.com/i_know_why_the_caged_snuffleupagus_sings
http://www.correntewire.com/the_audacious_book_salon_chapter_one_and_done

B. Fact: Obama hasn't meaningfully opposed the war any more than HRC has since he got to the Senate. Fact: He admits that he might have voted for it if he'd been in her shoes. Truthiness: Obama is an antiwar stalwart.

I will grant you that Obama, unlike Hillary, has done a good job distancing himself from the working class. He has that going for him.

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I see cleverness lacking.

HRC is way, way, way more electable than BHO, and the superdels are gonna consider this when they make their final decision.

BHO can't even put her away when he's got all of the media on his side, and his attack dogs are out, AND he outspends her 3 to 1!!

Reports of Hillary's demise are greatly exaggerated. I truly believe that BHO will be the one to drop out (as he SHOULD), not HRC.

less is more.

The OP made his case quite well, what do you have to offer?

Want me to say it in a different language? :shrug:

You offer nothing refuting that Obama's voting record is virtually the same as Clinton's, you offer nothing refuting that no source outside of Obama's campaign can verify his speech happened, you offer nothing refuting that Obama couldn't vote against the IWR, or any of the other points made.

So what do you have to offer?

;)

here it is in big, blinking letters:

Hillary voted for the Iraq War. Hillary still refuses to admit it was a mistake.

She has never opposed the war or admitted to her mistake in voting for the war.


The fact that she says we should pull out now does not equal a change of mind or heart relative to her support for the war and her voting for it.

"See, Obama's a liar because he made his speech in October 2002 and did not start his Senate campaign until January 2003."

Thus spake the OP as "Oh, dear ..."

Isn't that pretty easily refuted though? The war did not start until March 17, 2003. Massive war protests, such as the kind I rented a car and drove to, happened in February of 2003. Thus, Obama is perfectly correct in saying that he opposed the war during his campaign for the US Senate. Unless you think that the only way he opposed the war was by giving ONE speech, which is, of course, what Hillary likes her supporters to believe.

"Isn't that pretty easily refuted though? The war did not start until March 17, 2003. Massive war protests, such as the kind I rented a car and drove to, happened in February of 2003. Thus, Obama is perfectly correct in saying that he opposed the war during his campaign for the US Senate. Unless you think that the only way he opposed the war was by giving ONE speech, which is, of course, what Hillary likes her supporters to believe."

So show me how he opposed the war beyond that one speech, without using ad hominems like calling the OP a smartass.

I already proved that the OP did not make his/her case even as they threw an "oh dear, it turns out Obama lied" hint. And even that turns out to be false

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=aaad0724-dd13-4ffa-810b-d5d3220ff055

"At a minimum, that's an overstatement. With war looming in the fall of 2002, Obama was preparing a long-shot run for an open U.S. Senate seat, which he would not formally announce until the following January. At least two other Democrats were also gearing up, including a wealthy white businessman. Obama's best shot at the Democratic nomination involved consolidating a coalition of lakefront liberals and African Americans."

Of course, you may note the "at a minimum, that's an overstatement" and this:

"Nor was opposing the war likely to threaten Obama in a general election. Illinois is a reliably blue state, carried easily by Al Gore and John Kerry. The state's only Democratic senator at the time, Dick Durbin (as well as eight of Illinois's nine Democrats in the House), ultimately opposed the Iraq resolution."

But the facts remain, Obama opposed the war as a Senate candidate, just like he said, and Hillary supported it. Would it have been a huge political risk for her to oppose it? Wasn't there a huge anti-war rally in New York City?

And this article just examines that one speech and other speeches where he does not take such a strong stance and also examines other speeches where he talks much but none of his votes seem to back up said talk.

So again, how is what the OP asserted about it being one speech false?

Oh and by the way about your post title of "heaven forbid that I use ad hominems against an OP full of them", tu quoqe is also not a valid approach. Just because one person does something illogical does not make your own moves any more logical, substantive, or rational than theirs.

if you praise the OP and critique me. Perhaps I missed the post where you called out the OP on ad hominem logic? But probably everybody applies finer sifting to arguments/people they disagree with.

I don't have lexis or some journalistic search engine to find news reports of what Obama did in January or February or early March. It falls back onto the OP to prove their original argument once I have blown a huge hole in it.

I already showed that the OP did not make his/her case for implying that Obama is a liar, and further, my search for proof of his January activities made an even stronger case. It showed that the October speech WAS part of his US senate campaign even though he hadn't FORMALLY announced.

"if you praise the OP and critique me. Perhaps I missed the post where you called out the OP on ad hominem logic? But probably everybody applies finer sifting to arguments/people they disagree with."

No where does the OP dismiss the arguments of others as being a smart-a$$ as you did or go after Obama purely by ad hominem. There is no ad hominem in calling someone a liar if the evidence supports that as the truth. And there is no double-standard in asking people to apply logic and reason to their arguments even when the other side is not. Two wrongs do not, in this world or any other, make a right.

"I don't have lexis or some journalistic search engine to find news reports of what Obama did in January or February or early March. It falls back onto the OP to prove their original argument once I have blown a huge hole in it."

You have google, shouldn't be too hard to find SOMETHING if Obama made other such strong stands against the war. And it does NOT fall on the OP to reprove their original argument when you have refuted nothing. You haven't even provided evidence refuting what he said about that one speech not being directly covered in newspapers or in the media beyond his own website. You have disproven NOTHING.

"I already showed that the OP did not make his/her case for implying that Obama is a liar, and further, my search for proof of his January activities made an even stronger case. It showed that the October speech WAS part of his US senate campaign even though he hadn't FORMALLY announced"

This doesn't blow any large holes in their argument NOR does what you said show his speech was part of his campaign for the US Senate. You've proven nothing and have provided NOTHING proving it was part of his campaign that had yet to begin.

If it's not ad hominem to call someone a liar if the evidence supports it, then it's also not ad hominem to call someone a smart-a$$ if the evidence supports that.

Now you think you are disproving me by the fact that my first google search for "Obama Iraq 2003" did not bring up some definitive proof that I could rub your nose in. Yeah, there was nothing in the first ten links so I should spend hours trying to definitively disprove a BS post to some stubborn partisans. People who seem to think that because Obama's speech wasn't covered on the front page of the Chicago Tribune that it does not redound to his credit.

"Now you think you are disproving me by the fact that my first google search for "Obama Iraq 2003" did not bring up some definitive proof that I could rub your nose in. Yeah, there was nothing in the first ten links so I should spend hours trying to definitively disprove a BS post to some stubborn partisans. People who seem to think that because Obama's speech wasn't covered on the front page of the Chicago Tribune that it does not redound to his credit."

The burden of proof lies on you, not me or the OP, to refute the OP's claims. You have provided nothing to back up your so-called refutations.

"If it's not ad hominem to call someone a liar if the evidence supports it, then it's also not ad hominem to call someone a smart-a$$ if the evidence supports that."

The first case is true, in the second case simply calling someone a smart-a$$ in lieu of addressing their points is not an argument and IS an argumentum ad hominem. Here's a link that explains it since you don't seem to get what an ad hominem is based on your posts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Hominem">here.

except my comment about smart-a$$ was not written to refute the OP. It was written to refute your comment that the OP made his case very well. Then we got caught in this other argument. Do you really want a refutation or are we simply caught up in Newton's second law of arguments? The OP really is full of straw.

And poisoning the well with this last bit:

"The OP is really full of straw."

If it was then you would have facts that you would have already posted refuting it, you have still failed to do so repeatedly after having been given said chance repeatedly. And calling my post a smart-a$$ is still an ad hominem and fails to address what I said, so you still haven't really proven or argued anything beyond that you do some very good spin and like using insults in lieu of logic.

What galaxy do you live in? There's not a SINGLE ad hominem attack in the OP. You DO konw what an ad hominem is, don't you?

Point me to ONE. JUST ONE. Here's a clue. Stating a documented fact, followed by "oh dear" ISN'T an ad hominem attack.

You gave yourself away in your first post in this thread "endear me to a supporter of a candidate I hate ..."

Obots just can't take the FACTS, when the facts taste different than the Kool-Aid.

Bake

The OP is full of strawmen.

Good, solid arguments against those strawmen, but ultimately no more convincing than my ad hominems.

We should try to keep our terms straight. So try to remember, that I am not an Obot. I am a Hugh Hillary Hater.

And why do you hate him?

For a strawman to be a strawman, it has to be an argument that no one is making.

The "strawmen" you speak of are the constant claims -- especially in places like DU -- that Obama has been a steadfast opponent of the war, and that Hillary is unacceptable/a Republican/etc., etc., because she (like John Kerry, John Edwards, and many other decent human beings in the Senate) voted for the AUMF.

As I document, Obama's opposition to the war has been anything but steadfast.

At the extreme low-information end, plenty of people actually think "Obama voted against the war." And even Obama, shall we say, "misspeaks" about the circumstances of his famous speech.

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You support the Patriot Act, which Obama voted for, the funding which Obama voted for, and of course Cheney's Energy Bill, which even Hillary rejected, but Obama vote a gleeful Excelon yes!
I oppose the Patriot Act and funing this criminal war. I want rid of Blackwater Mercs, Obama says he wants to help them follow guidelines.
Complaining about one candidate doing things your candidate also does is hilarious, and it is the point of the OP.
But of course, you favor Cheney's Energy Plan, right? Dig that Patriot Act too? Obama backs them. And you back him. You back him without honestly looking at the identical nature of his policies with someone you hate. I guess you like his tie better or something, lord knows it can not be policy.
The reason this cycle got so personal and vicious is because the two candidates are so similar. They have no real differences to discuss, so they fling mud and bait minorities. The gay baiting hits home for me, the race baiting hits home for my friends. Both is disgusting. Not just one. Both.

That's where you make your opponents argument for them instead of either asking or listening.

And, of course, every Hillary hater MUST have complained about Hillary doing the same thing Obama does, right, because they are basically clones. It could not possibly be true that Hillary argued strongly against raising the cap on people making over $100,000 a year and called those people middle class and inflated that tax increase to a trillion dollars. Only to be smacked down by Obama in a debate. It couldn't possibly be true that Hillary proposes a bunch of Republican style tax-credits which mainly impact people above the median income (since poorer people already pay zero income taxes and thus get nothing) while Obama proposes a smaller refundable credit.

Finally, it could not also be true that some progressives are still pissed at the way Bill Clinton threw them under the bus in the 1990s, and that some people are worried about the way Clinton derangement syndrome will affect the Republican base and the RWNM and the M$M, causing at least a few Congressional races to goto Republican, kinda like they did in 1994, and causing fiercer opposition during her administration. (And yes I know that is all speculative, but I don't see a good reason to risk it. Neither do you if you don't think Hillary is substantially better than Obama.)

None of that can be true because of the much simpler and satisfying explanation that Obots and Hillhaters are all just a bunch of fucking idiots who can't see how horrible Obama is and how great Hillary is, or how basically the same they are.

Has there really been gay baiting or is it just that the HRC has endorsed Hillary and thus closely scrutinizes Obama while turning a blind eye to Hillary? That's what this guy thinks
http://citizenchris.typepad.com/citizenchris/2007/11/hillarys-donnie.html

Obama has repeatedly claimed that he was campaigning for the U.S. Senate in 2002, when he made his speech.

IMHO, continually misstating his situation when he made this speech -- the linchpin of his campaign -- a lot more damning than Hillary misremembering or embellishing the situation when she visited Bosnia. YMMV.

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I guess it is not possible that he was campaigning for the Senate even before he made his formal announcement? Why the heck else is a State Senator even giving a speech about national policy?

A State Senator giving a speech about national policy, I know there were mayors who also spoke against the war, does that mean they were also running for federal office when they did so?

Thank you, thank you, thank you. And yet some will continue to be willfully blind and deaf to all you state here.

You a thinking writer or sumpin'? One of the most excellent posts ever in this cesspool. Thank you for this, if I haven't said it before. ;)

Now I know what to put on my business cards!

Thanks!

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Well written, well documented.

we can just go read her website you know

No doubt, I was also wrong to support Edwards until he pulled out.

Coronations are better than voting, when you get right down to it.

phony is what phony does I guess

You were the captain of your debate team?

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This is politics, not religion. Therefore, lining ourselves up with some celebrity who supposedly "shares our values," or judging a politician as though they were a guru or spiritual leader and applying purity litmus tests is not really political at all.

In politics, we make tactical and strategic choices for practical reasons. If I applied your criteria, I would never "support" (whatever that means - say no evil about? Worship? Give myself over to? Scream at people about?) or vote for any Democratic party politician.

The search for spiritual purity and the drive to perfecting individual stances and choices belongs in the realm of religion and spirituality, not politics. Politics is about power and economics, not personal choices and stances. It is about mass mobilization and collective action, not about individual feelings. It is about compromise and fighting, not about finding personal inner peace and harmony. Politics is dynamic and interactive - an ongoing national discussion - not an exercise in consumerism where all we do is select our favorite piece of merchandise off the shelf.

In a representative democracy, the politicians represent the people, not the other way around. It destroys democracy when people see their role as representing the politician, selecting the politician based on their supposed qualities and features, and then acting as unpaid and zealous public relations agents to advance their career. That approach leads to idolizing politicians, turning them into messiahs and gurus and celebrities - and if we are not careful, into tyrants.

Look at who is supporting Obama. It is a "who's who" of the modern liberal and Democratic party establishment - the same establishment that has been rolling over and compromising with the right wing for decades, that has become increasingly estranged from the public and alienated millions of people, that takes the support of minority people for granted, the same establishment that has turned liberalism into an elitist and arrogant joke in the eyes of millions of people. We have gone from a muscular and populist New Deal liberalism, into an effete and ineffective hobby activity for the enlightened few. Why support that?

I now think that there is a chance - that's all, a chance - that a Clinton candidacy may do better against the Republicans, and that once in office a Clinton administration may be more responsive to the people.

Clinton was ninth of nine candidates as my choice - a distant ninth - when the process started, and I am far from enthusiastic about her candidacy. So what? Welcome to the real world. I have not been very enthusiastic about any candidate since RFK was murdered - and Obama is no RFK. But here we are, and we make the best of what we have. Many of us have been doing that for 40 or 50 years. I rejected the McCarthy movement in '68 when I was a young person, and I have reservations about the Obama candidacy for the same reasons - you can not build a mass political movement to turn the party and the country around with an appeal that strongly resonates with only 10-15% of the population. This is not about race, age, or gender. Those are all divisive distractions.

I do not know with certainty that I am right about this, but I do know that the point of view I am offering is at very least worthy of consideration, and I also know that there is violent resistance to this point of view being heard.

:thumbsup:

DemEx

reader does not get. I always thought that the reality of politics was who got the most of their folks out to vote on Election Day versus how many the opposition turned out.

Perhaps the switch during the first Clinton era from traditional Democratic ideals to the New Democrat corporatist mentality changed that basic reality. Because, otherwise I don't see how one can say that a Clinton candidacy might do better against the Republicans. She huge negatives and they get larger every week--she is a one person Republican GOTV effort.

She does not pull in independents or moderate Republicans. I've heard the Clinton supporter lectures that Democratic primaries are the only true measure of support--but in political realityland, not hillaryland, we need some of those votes. She's disparaged the 'activists', diminished her likelihood of large turnout in the black vote, and I'd imagine the same with young voters.

I don't know how one who alienates a good portion of the folks needed to actually go out and vote can be projected to do better against Republicans.

Welcome to DU, and thanks for your comments.

If we assume and accept that half of the people in the country "are" Republicans, as most activists do, then the contest would be as you describe it. Certainly the mass media presents it that way. The Republicans do not so much turn out any voters - they don't have enough people and have hit their high water mark in the last few elections. They depend upon suppressing the vote and upon driving people away from the Democrats with fear.

That means that the outcome of any election is in the hands of the Democrats, not the Republicans and it is never an equal contest. Republicans have to lie and cheat to win. Any sort of strong Democratic campaign would always win on a level playing field. However, our candidates are not interested in running strong campaigns, not interested in fighting for the working class, are not interested in leveling the playing field, and the activist community does not demand that they do.

The African American community is the strongest and most loyal bloc of voters, and it is highly unlikely that a Clinton candidacy would hurt the party there. The activist community is far to small to be important as a voting bloc. Young voters? Hard to say. What I see is that the Obama enthusiasts are from a very narrow, and relatively small demographic, similar to the McCarthy movement in '68.

Who wins the Scots-Irish voters is who wins national elections. There are two ways to do that - Republicans do it by leveraging the idiocy of the Democrats and drive people on culture war issues to not so much vote for Republicans, rather to vote against modern liberalism. They could never do that without a tremendous amount of help from the Democrats. The second way to win that group is to run a political rather than a cultural war campaign - on issues of power and economics, promising to fight the wealthy and powerful few on behalf of the working class. That is the one and only way Democrats have ever been able to build "unity."

I don't expect either of the candidates to do a very good job of that, although I do think that Obama would be more of a disaster there. It will be absolutely impossible to build "unity" upon a foundation of liberal culture war positions, sentiments, preferences and viewpoints. That is the playing field of the Republicans, and they have all of the advantages there. That is ALL they have and the only way they can win by the way.

The more that Obama supporters defend his candidacy, the more I hear them using liberal cultural war arguments to support their case. The more I hear and watch and read Obama's speeches and statements, the more convinced I am that he is a liberal cultural war candidate.

Obama is probably the best liberal cultural war candidate we have ever had, which is why the activist community is so enthusiastic about him. In my view, that does not mean he will do better in the general, rather that he will do worse. Why? Because built in to the liberal cultural war movement - an inseparable component of it - is the fact that it strongly alienates a large number of people, and that is the prime source of the power of the Republicans. That means that the more enthusiasm generated for Obama, the more the backlash of resentment and contempt from the general public. People hate the professorial demeanor, the condescension and arrogance, the elitism and the academic lectures - the very things that people in the activist community love - and the Republicans will use that "out of touch with the average American" theme to great advantage.They could not do that were there not some truth to it. The liberal activist community IS out of touch with the average American - Hell many brag about that - and Obama is the quintessential candidate to represent the liberal activist community.

The silver lining in the cloud is that perhaps after the Obama campaign, perhaps people will finally abandon the 35 year experiment in using politics as a vehicle for fighting cultural wars with the Republicans, and that will lead to the collapse of the party so that it can be re-organized and we can see a massive re-alignment of voters. That is what is badly needed, and I think it is inevitable. The Obama campaign may accelerate that process.

But, I think we disagree on the basic premise. It would seem to me from the 2000 election, that the country is pretty well divided among Democrats and Republicans.

So, you believe that the candidate who will draw out every last Republican who can get to the polls because they hate her with a white-hot hate will be the winner? The candidate who has totally lost the support of the African-American community will be the winner? Listen to the African-American leaders like Clymer--they're warning the superdels--this woman has lost our support.

And the candidate who can garner crossover Republican votes, independent votes, young votes, and average Democratic votes, and has an apparatus for registering new voters and getting out the vote would do worse?

You speak about the McCarthy kids and 1968. Sorry, I remember 1968 and you had a major civil rights leader dead, a convention that was a riot, and the presidential candidate that probably would have won it all dead. It makes no sense to talk about 1968 and link it to today's campaign.

And frankly, I'm fairly tired of mainstream Democrats, of which I'm one, being dismissed as 'activists' by the Clintonians. Most of the current Obama supporters that I know supported other candidates originally. But, their 'activism' is based on the fact that they fear the destructiveness of a Hillary Clinton candidacy, since so many members of the Republican base would come out to vote against her. And none of the younger--not the 18-21s--but the under 35s might vote for Obama, but not for her.

Many of these main stream 'activists' also watched the Clintons destroy the Democratic Party in the 90s. It's not about culture wars as much as about practical politics.

Thanks!
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So what will be next, insulting my mother.

You still FAIL, because you FAIL to apply logic or reason and replace both with schoolyard taunts and FAIL to raise the level of the debate beyond simple name-calling, and as such your posts deserve nothing more than a resounding FAIL.

:rofl: I must admit, your responses are quite insightful. Admirable...Gee- I am shocked (and relieved) to see that not all DUers are so hateful, and can still apply critical, logical thinking to describe what is really going on. The OP is great, but your responses to some of the others incited a boisterous laugh from me. Great! :yourock: **hehe...e-thug..that is hilarious!

Thank you for playing the ad hominem game, here is your prize:



I guess you're missing the point about pointing out when someone is being stupid by showing how truly ridiculous they are. Then again I guess you left your sense of humor outside of GDP.

he has voted the same as Hillary at every point since he could vote. I mean votes in the senate not speech votes. He gave a speech about not wanting the war, but you need some fact checking.

Time to get more irony in your diet!

I even gave your namesake a shout-out. Geez!


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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1LhCch-JEo

Oh, and yeah, his Senate run turned out to be a cakewalk. But how does that change the meaning of speaking out against the war before that fact was realised?

What he's done since -- now that he has the bully pulpits of being a U.S. Senator and major presidential candidate -- doesn't impress me much, including continuing to fund the war and continuing to "misspeak" about the circumstances in which his speech was given.

My other points, I believe, prove that the supposed huge gulf between these two centrists that so many DUers perceive just isn't there.

As I continue this series, I'll make my arguments about why -- when Edwards pulled out of the race -- Hillary (much to my surprise) stands out as the more reliably progressive choice. Or, rather, how seriously disappointing Obama's candidacy has been: truthy, religiose, divisive, and built on false and retrograde framing.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCiv1f3DaMA

Remember to check the links supplied in the description of the video.

Talking with his aides, the Illinois Democrat expressed admiration for Roberts's intellect. Besides, Obama said, if he were president he wouldn't want his judicial nominees opposed simply on ideological grounds."

I have posted repeatedly on DU that Obama cannot be counted on to nominate progressive individuals as Justices for the Supreme Court, that he will compromise (read capitulate) with the GOP and the grave consequence shall be that the Supreme Court will become the most conservative since gawd knows when.

... the Illinois Democrat expressed admiration for Roberts's intellect.

I suppose Obama is enthralled with Cheney, then, who possesses an intellect far superior to most people.

1) I understand your skepticism when you note you cannot find any contemporaneous newspaper reports of his October 2002 speech given at an anti-war rally. Do you remember the extensive media coverage of the anti-war protests leading up to the Iraq War? Neither do I. It was more like a media blackout. Not surprising that this one didn't make the news, either.

2) So how do we even know that Obama spoke publicly against the IWR? Here is a video clip from a local Chicago station in November 2002, where Obama states unequivocably that he would have voted with Senator Durbin against the IWR.

3) Why is this courageous if he's voting the same as the other IL senator? They were both courageous: Durbin was up for re-election that year but as an incumbent, and Obama was only a few months shy of starting his own campaign for the U.S. Senate running as a relative unknown against many others. You think his opponents would let remarks dating from two months before he launched his campaign in January 2003 fall away because they weren't relevant? Another point: unless he was psychic, he couldn't have known in the fall of 2002 that his formidable opponent Jack Ryan was going to self-implode in the summer of 2004, so speaking out as he did at the time WAS an act of courage.

Hope this eases some of your concerns. :hi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXzmXy226po

Didn't exactly see hillary Clinto display the same well thought out reservation. And she even had the option of voting on it. And reading the NIE. Thats the part that really astonishes me. Not reading all the information at hand? Before sending people to war?

has never impressed me as an argument against Clinton or for Obama. She, like virtually all of her colleagues in the Senate, voted for it, and although millions of people saw the idea of invading Iraq as assanine from the first mention, I can imagine our Senators may have not believed Bush would do something quite that stupid.

For me it's not about the occupation of Iraq only. I have other issues, most of which have coalesced in my mind *while* this primary season has advanced. She made up my mind for me.

Carry on.

You have expressed the reservations that I have about the Obama candidacy, and that many of us have about it I believe, very well. "Reservations" - that is all. Not smears, not hatred, not attacks. The fact that there is so much resistance to the expression of any reservations about the Obama phenomenon is not the fault of those expressing the reservations, let alone the fault of "Hillary" nor is it the fault of "them" - "stupid knuckle dragging racist idiots who we don't need anyway so f 'em!"

It is very telling how few and weak the responses have been from Obama supporters - hundreds of whom flock to threads smearing and insulting Clinton and her supporters - to any substantive and informed critical analysis of the campaign.

Close to half of the Democrats in the country are resisting the call for "unity," and merely blaming and attacking those who refuse to "unite" for the lack of unity is self-defeating and destructive. Of course we could have unity if we would all just unite. But we haven't and we don't. That is the truth, and saying that Obama is uniting us as a reason for why those recalcitrant and annoying critics should be forced to shut up is self-contradictory. If Obama were uniting us, we would be united.

you need to step away from politics for awhile and get your head straight.

http://factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck2/iraq/

really does have a lot to say about how good Obama is. I wish more of those links were actually connecting to things though.


I wonder if Clinton's web site has a lot of good things to say about her.

not Obama's PR people typing BS on a blog or something. C'mon now.

web site. She has just as many "transcripts" as he does. They all prove just the opposite point of view. Using the website for a candidate as an unbiased source of information indicates a naive view of research. You can find a source somewhere to say anything you want. Then you put it as your "proof" and people who don't understand that you picked the one view that makes you look good actually buy it. Some of the sources linked have validity and present a valid view, although often based on opinion. Others are just crap. To better make your argument, you should link to the original source rather than the Obama page. How valid would you take information if the only link I gave was to the Hillary for President page?

:thumbsup:

If there are lies, rebut them. The OP has done his/her homework.

Here's the perma link to the video I linked to in #37:

http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2007/02/obama_on_iraq_in_02.html

Sorry, I don't speak Elitist.

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Right out of the gate, we have strawman arguments

"even as Sen. Clinton embarrasses herself with primary victories in podunk states like California, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania, is that even a state?"

Except that New York and California were almost 3 months ago, and that she lost Texas by delegate counts. Nor have most Obama supporters disparaged the states Hillary won like Clinton supporters have discounted Obamas victories in places like South Carolina, Louisiana, Nebraska, and Kansas.

Then, this:

"Oops. I left out one huge differentiator: unlike Hillary, Obama voted against the war.

I know he did, because a Google search on "Obama voted against the war" turns up thousands of citations."

Does Obama or do Obama supporters commonly say that Obama voted against the war? If not, then it is a strawman. The google search does not prove anything in that regard either. This OP is number two on that list now. Wow, sometimes a blogger says something wrong. I guess that proves that Obama sucks, eh? Yet this is a strawman argument about the real issue that Obama opposed the war whereas Clinton supported it.

"But it was still brave for him to speak out against the pending vote in the thick of his U.S. Senate campaign. He said as much in a February debate, and his website states: "As a candidate for the United States Senate in 2002, Obama put his political career on the line to oppose going to war in Iraq, and warned of 'an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs, and undetermined consequences.'"

Oh dear, he didn't start his U.S. Senate campaign until January of 2003. But who are you going to believe, Barack Obama or your lyin' calendar?"

Again, "brave" does not matter to me as much as being right. "Was he brave?" is a moot question, but he has certainly been proven right. Furthermore, if you want to say that it took no political courage for Obama to oppose the war, then isn't it kinda hard to defend the fact that Hillary didn't?

"But it surely was gutsy to make such a controversial speech in front of the unblinking eye and unflappable ears of the video cameras and tape recorders.

Unfortunately, it seems there's no audio or video of his historic speech available. Or, perhaps, it was recorded on a phonautograph. So, Obama had to "re-enact" part of the speech, complete with echo effects, to include it in a campaign ad.

OK, no A/V. But Chicago is a great newspaper town, whose intrepid, fedora-decked reporters wrote reams of....

Dang. As best I can tell from extensive online searching, there are no contemporaneous articles about the speech anywhere.

But he definitely delivered it on 10/2/02, before the AUMF vote. Or on 10/26/02, after the AUMF vote. On that much, the record (if there were one) is clear."


Again, was it "gutsy" or "controversial"? Does that matter, or does it just make a handy strawman to knock down? First you inflate the speech, then you puncture it. Makes for a louder "bang" in the mind of the reader, but doesn't make it truth or logic.

Then post two dates as if Obama has been inconsistent about when the speech was, and hey, because the media may not have reported on it, or put that record online where an anonymous DUer cannot find it after an "extensive search" then maybe it never happened.

"Whatever. He has stood steadfastly behind those original words. Like in 2004, when he said "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage" ($). Um..."

Um, gee, I am speechless having knocked down another strawman. First I make the argument that "he has stood steadfastly behind those original words" then beat the stuffing out of an argument nobody else made. Using a line taken out of context to do so. Brilliant! At least if you unquestioningly agree with the thesis.

Then take a quote where he refused to attack Hillary for her war vote and use that to smear him. Truly without shame, but that still does not prove that he didn't oppose the war and she didn't. Neither does the quote from Hans Blix about the summer of 2002 absolve Hillary. Hillary was talking to Woodruff and Code Pink in February of 2003 when inspectors were already in and she was supporting Bush's case for war, saying "it is up to Saddam to prevent the war" and "Saddam is not co-operating with inspectors".

"What? Their voting records are "virtually identical"!? Still, when Obama made those votes he was being an awesome, young, transformative progressive. When Hillary made them, she was old, machine-like, and totally Republican about it. How could anyone fail to see the difference?"

See, I mocked another strawman argument. That proves that Obama supporters are a$$holes or idiots, and that Hillary needs to be the candidate.

"And then Rouse, his chief of staff, spoke up. This was no Harvard moot-court exercise, he said. If Obama voted for Roberts, Rouse told him, people would remind him of that every time the Supreme Court issued another conservative ruling, something that could cripple a future presidential run. Obama took it in. And when the roll was called, he voted no."

That's pretty cool actually since I was calling Tim Johnson and Russ Feingold and telling them to vote no as well. It's too bad Hillary didn't have somebody on her staff telling her that about the IWR or her statements to Code Pink and Woodruff.

And yes, as for the end, I have never been all that fond of his bipartisan rhetoric, but neither have I been impressed by Hillary as a partisan fighter.

In sum, you have not responded to any of my own actual arguments, and at best have only shown that Obama is no better than Hillary. I'm not even buying that because by denigrating his opposition to the war, you are basically denigrating my own opposition to the war. After all, there's no record of the speech I never made (although I wrote one and wish I had kept a copy).

In the interest of time, I'll confine my debunking to the first item.

"Except that New York and California were almost 3 months ago (she won large states early and large states recently... this reflects badly on her how?), and that she lost Texas by delegate counts" (I said she won the Texas primary, which she absolutely did. She lost -- as per usual -- in the relatively undemocratic/unrepresentative caucuses).

"Nor have most Obama supporters disparaged the states Hillary won like Clinton supporters have discounted Obamas victories in places like South Carolina, Louisiana, Nebraska, and Kansas." (You must be joking; every imaginable sort of rationalization has been used to discount anything positive that's ever happened in the Clinton campaign -- just read any of 10 zillion "she only won by 9.2%" articles and posts in the past week, as if resoundingly winning yet another huge swing state late in the campaign while being wildly outspent by the supposed frontrunner is some kind of failure -- and to discount any and all opportunities to make the essential swing states Michigan and Florida whole. And, you know what, a Dem winning in Kansas means jack shit... or do you really think Obama will take the Jayhawk State?).

Also, FWIW, I have publicly criticized Bill Clinton's sour grapes comments about SC.

And one of the most enjoyable ones I've read here in a long time.

:thumbsup:

DemEx

And for a change, there have been some good responses pro and con (and some pretty lame cons, too).

Reminds me of a site I used to go to called "Democratic Underground." Whatever happened to that place?


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to that site you used to go to. Hard to find anymore.

(quote)
Reminds me of a site I used to go to called "Democratic Underground." Whatever happened to that place?


(Reply)

The fish rots from the head!

and terrorists crashed a plane into the Sears Tower would he have voted against the war? You have to put things in context Hillary Clinton was the Senator in NY and after 911 if she had not voted for the IWR she would probably not be Senator today. Like has been said many times, everything changed on 911 at least until the war started to go badly in Iraq. Like the old John Kerry thing where he voted for it before he voted against it.

so, hillary voted to go to war with IRAQ because of 9/11? whether or not i've heard that before, it never ceases to amaze me.

and "everything changed?" sometimes, clinton's supporters remind me of bush supporters. it's fucking bizarre to hear a dem say something like, "everything changed after 9/11," justifying "iraq," but only "until everything went wrong." it was wrong from the fucking beginning.

you're right- everything did change- it changed in favor of power-hungry warmonger agenda, in favor of excessively wealthy demagogues like dick cheney and bushco, the media stepped up its propaganda efforts, and frightened people forgot to use critical thinking skills, if any, to discern between fact and utter and complete fiction. and that is it.

it shouldn't have made us the aggressor and world police. everyone knew before 9/11 that terrorism was an evil plague, it simply wasn't a reality to shopping and sunbathing americans. how many people had been killed prior to the first major strike on US soil internationally in terror attacks? just because it happened here and shocked us doesn't mean we EVER should have jumped on the warhawk express.

the fact of the matter is WAR is only state sponsored terrorism. i thought dems were of the mind- FROM THE BEGINNING, BEFORE "everything started to go badly," that war would only create MORE terrorism.

let me make this clear: hillary lost support when she voted IWR, even the people who could care less about corporate connections.

if she had voted against IWR, i would be behind her, or at least not so passionately opposed to her, senator or not. THAT'S WHERE SHE LOST ME. and then she really lost me w/ kyl-lieb.

i don't think, nor will i ever believe that she voted for IWR thinking that new yorkers would embrace her for getting their "REVENGE" against a country who had NOTHING to do with 9/11- i think she voted for it b/c she's part of the fuckin war machine, going right along with the right wing DLC.

even if her reasons were merely political calculation, thinking that this would somehow help her, it still does not sit well with me. she may have recanted, in a way, sort of, saying she wouldn't if she knew then what she knows now, but like the netherworld receptionist in "beetlejuice" who slit her wrists, it doesn't do her any good, and now she will spend eternity as a civil servant...er, the receptionist, that is.

sears tower and obama? well, that didn't happen, and obama didn't vote for IWR, so, he gets my lukewarm but passionately anti-war/hillary vote, but if he had, i wouldn't be behind him...of course, if kucinich had made it this far, i would be behind DK, but he didn't...so can we not wax further hypothetical? it did not happen.

as for john kerry, well, i never backed him. i didn't like his position on iraq and his back and forth about it. i suffered a great deal of depression during kerry's campaign, much as i would if hillary somehow managed to steal the nomination from obama. She was "duped," in hillaryworld, and then went on to sabre-obliteration, when, like iraq, iran hasn't even done anything.

Don't litter the board with facts.

Here's one fact that the Obama supporters refuse to acknowledge. Hillary did not vote FOR THE WAR.
She voted to give the President power IF he needed it at the UN. That's what she voted for.
Should she have known Bush was a flake and would use it to invade Iraq? I don't think she's a mind reader...but...
doc03 is right. She was trying to give the President the aura of support in the world that he said he needed to go to the UN. Her constituents expected it. Personally, I think it was the wrong thing to do. But since a huge percentage of Senators voted with her, maybe they got information I didn't have. Possible?

I admire you for an argument based on facts -- facts you've sourced, not just insisted upon.

You must know you're going against the grain here...

I think it just goes to show that all our candidates are politicians. Unfortunately, if they weren't, they wouldn't have a shot at the presidency. (How many wonderful people have we seen try and fail, because they weren't "good enough" as politicians?!)

The stark reality is that there are no saints who can make it to the presidency. There are no heroes vs. devils, no "agents of change" who can totally reform "politics as usual" -- just people who walk fine lines of compromise, "positioning themselves" on a political tightrope, making deals and selling myths. That goes for all who actually have a chance at the White House, and we're naive if we expect anything more.

People who are truly "different" can't make it to the White House. There's Dennis Kucinich, out in a rowboat of truth all on his own in this vast ocean of politics. He's too "extreme" to be a politician who can get there. There's Wesley Clark, without the usual Political Strings attached, who couldn't get elected because he didn't have enough -- guess what? -- "political experience." There are people like Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, Mario Cuomo; there's Kweisi Mfume, Michael Moore, young leaders-in-the-making like Jon Soltz, but what makes them leaders doesn't make them politicians, and what makes them politicians makes them compromised.

Call me a cynic, I guess. That's why I'm not thrilled or enthralled with Clinton or Obama, nor infuriated and hostile toward Clinton or Obama.

To have a chance, they have to be politicians. That's the hard truth, and nothing's going to "change" or "reform" that.

Ah, reason!

Messiah vs. Monster.

This was supposed to be a change year, a year in which someone like Kucinich or Edwards should have been able to get traction. But real change wasn't the story the MSM wanted to tell; instead, they chose these two options for us.

My preference for HRC among the remaining candidates is that she seems to much better understand that the change we need is to repudiate the Reagan Revolution and the VRWC, and not to say "a pox on both parties" as Obama does.


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are you fucking KIDDING ME?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1LhCch-JEo VIDEO of his 2002 November Interview on the television in which he against states his opposition to the War in Iraq.

Why would people remember him being at the anti war rally, if he wasn't there...including several reporters, including a Chicago Tribune reporter who wrote up an article on it, but admitted that he concentrated on Jesse's Jackson speech?

Why would Obama sit in a televised interview in November of 2002(before the war started), where he specifically mentioned that speech if he hadn't given it?

There would be no reason.





Glauber's article reporting on the War Rally that Obama spoke at here:


Jennifer Amdur Spitz, Rally Organizer and her statement on the rally and Obama:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1LhCch-JEo VIDEO

They remember that they think they remember it. The more often they talk about remembering it, the more they remember it.

Not "change you should believe in."

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Wonder if any "skeptics" will respond. I posted the link to the November 2002 video above but I guess it's invisible because no one responded. I must be on some ignore lists. :shrug:

Thanks for the additional links to the rally. My googling skills were only good enough to find the 2002 video. :hi:

IS THERE ANY LINK TO HIS ********ACTUAL******** SPEECH? Not his supporters 'saying' he gave it. Not him 'talking about it AFTER it supposedly happened'. Youtube is a real thing.

This is not only thought provoking, but it is very true. You did an excellent job of describing this issue. I am so glad to see that this post was not just another one of the slimy and hateful posts like so many others I have seen recently. When I stumbled upon DU, I initially loved the thoughtfulness and respect for our party's candidates (a little slime, as compared to a lot now). It has gotten to the point where I get on daily, but I become outraged at the crap that is posted...I don't feel engaged enough to respond to any of it. This post was definitely more than that. I applaud your veracity. I share the same sentiments, and I do question why some of the talking heads in the MSM keep trying to force the notion that Obama is above the fray and that he is so much different than Clinton. I must say- I'm glad that I have final exams (because I don't think my heart can stand much more Hillary bashing from some of the Obama-lovers in the media.)People tend to forget that they are very close in popularity with democrats, which indicates that more than just a few people want her in the oval office. Enough with my rant; Thanks for the great post!

... if I spent much time on DU these days. Same with Air America Radio, moveon.org, even worse on DailyKos.

Now, I have serious reservations with Barack Obama, but I never lose sight of the fact that he has a nearly identical voting record to Hillary's, and no matter how distressing I find his campaign, I would never think of not voting for the Dem in November -- or characterizing him as a vile subhuman the way his fans routinely treat Sen. Clinton.

The swarming nastiness, reflexive repetition of blatantly untrue rumors and memes, and persona non grata treatment unleashed on fellow Democrats who fail to fawn over Obama is what's tearing the party apart, not Hillary running an ad that says she's better prepared to handle a hotline call, nor Bill Clinton saying Obama's Iraq plan is a fairy tale.

I have never seen my party so under the sway of truthiness, and it's deeply disheartening.

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Even though a lot of the people who post the Love Obama/Hate Hillary stuff say they are old timers and long time activists, I see a lot of indication that a majority of the bombers are new comers to the political world.

They have a lot of blog savvy and a lot of enthusiasm. Not knocking them at all. I was a young, hippy know-it-all at one time. (I love the Time-Life CD ads on television that cranks out all the 60's stuff.) So I get their passion and I get their rage. But I also get that they are easily led. I was too.

I hope that they continue with their passion for justice and don't just graduate and go into corporate land like so many of the summer of love kids did back then. I don't want them turned off to fighting for what they think is right, but I wish there were some way to get them to see more than one side to a story.

May I have some more please.

He spoke out against the war before the vote. We know how he would have voted if he was in the Senate.

http://blackwomenforobama.wordpress.com/2007/05/26/remarks-of-illinois-state-sen-barack-obama-against-going-to-war-with-iraq/

to say that google hits count for something is flawed. for example: hillary eats 1000 hotdogs in a sitting as a google search turns up 26500 hits.

He started his campaign against a strong candidate who had t leave ovr a sex scandal. Then it was a cakewalk against Alan Keyes.

Though he didn't announce his candidacy for the senate until early 2003, one doesn't wake up one day and announce. It takes months of planning, so that really isn't unreasonable a statement.

Their voting records are very similar. OF course, Obama introduced a lot of important legislation on ethics, on nuclear material collection, et al. Hillary, on the other hand, voted to call the Iranian military terrorists... In fact she has claimned the desire of a U.S umbrella over the middle east against Iran.

I'm sorry, your post was good, but it would have been better without all the spin. I think you have legitimate points to make, but much of it was buried in the illegitimate stuff you included.

You, Sir, are speculating that Illinois State Sen. Obama would have voted against the war as a US Senator. While he repeatedly declares in the linked speach that he opposes any "dumb" wars, he was in no position at the time to vote on the IWR.
He was however in a position to vote on continued funding for the war, and he voted yes on that. So it would appear that while his principles require him to "oppose" dumb wars, he is a little more flexible about funding them.

*Disclaimer* I believe that either Obama or Clinton will be an infinitely better POTUS than the alternative, so I will cast my vote for the Democratic nominee.

But there is a historical record of Obama speaking out against an Iraq invasion before the vote authorizing the use of force.

As far as funding it thereafter, I see both sides of this. Obama and Clinton voted to fund the troops more than the police action itself. I would prefer neither had, because, despite the distinction I am going to describe below, doing so helped extend the police action and helped that effort out more than it helped the toops themselves.

Here is the distinction: Bush sent ill-equipped troops to carry out an ill-considered policy and followed and ill-conceived plan for them to do so. His positin now to keep them there rests more on his own ego and hopes for his own legacy than it does anything else. Frankly, even without funding, I am not sure he would have actually withdrawn them. Teddy Roosevelt used a similar tactic when he sent the U.S. Navy around the world on available funds, and then let the congress decide whether they wanted to fund the return trip. Ultimately, there had to be a veto-proof bill that required their withdraw.

And I do appreciate the civil debate!

As you have indicated, the choice to vote to continue funding the troops in what amounts to a police action is bothersome, but absolutely correct. We can't let the situation deteriorate for our troops on the ground any faster than it is by neglecting them.

I too do not believe Bush has ever had any intentions of pulling the troops out. Even if this had been the "cakewalk" that Rumsfeld promised, the neocon vision of an American strategic presence in the Middle East surely required a major troop commitment in Iraq.

Thanks for the reference to TR. I have never studied that aspect of his presidency and intend to in the future.

(Quote)
Hillary, on the other hand, voted to call the Iranian military terrorists...

(Reply)

On Iran and the question of designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, the junior senator from Illinois was not quite so clever at avoiding taking a position. He first co-sponsored the “Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007,” which contained explicit language identifying the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization. He subsequently claimed to oppose the Kyl-Lieberman sense of the Senate resolution proposing the same thing. Obama’s accountability problem here is that he didn’t show up for the vote on that resolution — a vote that would have put him on record. Then he declined to sign on to a letter put forward by Senator Clinton making explicit that the resolution could not be used as authority to take military action. All we have is Obama’s rhetoric juxtaposed with his co-sponsorship of a piece of legislation that proposed what he says he opposed.

Above credited to Amb Joe Wilson from his column on Obama's hollow judgement:
http://thechairman66.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/joe-wilson-obama-has-hollow-judgement/

than a google hit argument.

The Op-ed by Ambassador Wilson was orignally on Huffington. But it was the content I was referring to. The point is that Obama's words don't match his actions. Obama sponsored a BILL that would have forced the POTUS to label the IRG a terrorist org, then doesn't vote for a RESOLUTION that did the same thing.

Lets compare the kyl-lieberman amendment and S970. There is no contest. This is what Hillary voted for:

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/Kyl-Lieberman%20Amendment.pdf

(1) that the manner in which the United States transitions and structures its military presence in Iraq will have critical long-term consequences for the future of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, in particular with regard to the capability of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to pose a threat to the security of the region, the prospects for democracy for the people of the region, and the health of the global economy;

(2) that it is a vital national interest of the United States to prevent the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from turning Shi'a militia extremists in Iraq into a Hezbollah-like force that could serve its interests inside Iraq, including by overwhelming, subverting, or co-opting institutions of the legitimate Government of Iraq;

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to stop inside Iraq the violent activities and destabilizing influence of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies.

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States National power inside Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments in support of the policy with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.



Here is S970
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.970.IS:

It contains this language:

(1) The United States should pursue vigorously all measures in the international financial sector to restrict Iran's ability to conduct international financial transactions, including prohibiting banks in the United States from handling indirect transactions with Iran's state-owned banks and prohibiting financial institutions that operate in United States currency from engaging in dollar transactions with Iranian institutions.

(2) The United States Trade Representative or any other Federal official should not take any action that would extend preferential trade treatment to, or lead to the accession to the World Trade Organization of, any country that is determined by the Secretary of State to offer government-backed export credit guarantees to companies that invest in Iran or any country in which the government owns or partially owns an entity that invests in Iran.

(3) Iran should comply fully with its obligations under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1737, and any subsequent United Nations resolutions related to Iran's nuclear program, and in particular the requirement to suspend without delay all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, and all work on all heavy water-related nuclear activities, including research and development.

(4) The United Nations Security Council should take further measures beyond Resolution 1737 to tighten sanctions on Iran, including preventing new investment in Iran's energy sector, as long as Iran fails to comply with the international community's demand to halt its nuclear enrichment campaign.

(5) The United States should encourage foreign governments to direct state-owned entities to cease all investment in Iran's energy sector and all imports to and exports from Iran of refined petroleum products and to persuade, and, where possible, require private entities based in their territories to cease all investment in Iran's energy sector and all imports to and exports from Iran of refined petroleum products.

(6) Administrators of Federal and State pension plans should divest all assets or holdings from foreign companies and entities that have invested or invest in the future in Iran's energy sector.

(7) Iranian state-owned banks should not be permitted to use the banking system of the United States.

(8) The Secretary of State should designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1189) and the Secretary of the Treasury should place the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 13224 (66 Fed. Reg. 186; relating to blocking property and prohibiting transactions with persons who commit, threaten to commit, or support terrorism).


In short S970 says, "put them on a list". Kyl Liberman says "put them on a list and and do what you will."

Oh and by the way, Clinton was a cosponsor on S970 too...

Not showing up to vote on Kyl-Lieberman.

Perhaps that's how he would have established his hero cred on the Iraq AUMF.

I hope they've got more room on Mt. Rushmore.

I don't believe Obama is the greatest thing since the invention of the microwave. If I did, he wouldn't have been my 5th choice. As a choice though 5th was considerably higher than Hillary. Hence, I went with him as my choice.

All that I said is that you made good point in you original OP but masked them by burying them in questionable arguments.

If that is enough to get you all hot bothered and snarky, I apologize for causing your mental anguish.

... you've established that some of my arguments were questionable.

I'm snarky as a matter of course (ironic times call for ironic measures), so it's not particularly a matter of you getting me "all hot and bothered," not that there's anything wrong with that.

In any case, one thing we have in common is that we're choosing compromise candidates.

I'm not particularly directing this at you, but I'd sure like to see more DUers admit that Hillary isn't a different species (monster, machine, Republican) from Obama or other Democrats.


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I don't see how it will come down to it.

Someone is spinning here, but it ain't me.

Obama says he doesn't know how he would have voted. Sorry you find him so untrustworthy that you don't accept that.

There are more than 10,000 pages on the internet with the exact phrase (using quotes in the search) "obama voted against the war." I just Googled it and came up with 12,300 matching pages.

But Google says this about your string: No results found for "hillary eats 1000 hotdogs in a sitting"

I'm no math expert, but I'm pretty sure a 12,300:0 ratio does not compute.

True to form, Obama didn't vote on Kyl-Lieberman (the Iran vote). Hillary voted for it, which was awful. Obama took a pass (something he has famously done throughout his brief legislative career), which was both awful and craven. He gets the same number of points for that as your Google search gets.

And let's talk about how the seas parted for Mr. New Politics in his U.S. Senate campaign...




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I didn't put mine in quotes....that wasn;t the pont but google hits is not a useful argument no matter how you slice it. for instance, one hit is your DU thread. Try this one--in exact quotes-- "The surge is working" or this one "we are winning in Iraq"

I am not sure Hillary making excessively wrong choices is better than Obama not participating. You'll have to clear up for me how that is better.

As far as the Senate campaign, what's your argument? As I recollect, Hillary's opponent in NY in 2000 has some similar issues and dropped out, only to be replaced by a non-starter.


As I said above, you make useful arguments, but you buried many of them in the middle of pretend ones. Take the compliment and move one.

when you started to lie so early on when you said:

Obama voted against the war.

The only people saying that are against him, pulling a 'Scaife', or even a 'Rove'.

Obama was against the war, of course he didn't vote against it, he didn't even have the option to vote for it.

Based on your typical right-wing approach of throwing out lies and seeing which ones will stick, I'm not going to further entertain your crap.

and is meaningless. In short


Hey, wow, it turns out that some people are wrong when they say Obama didn't vote for the war, therefore I'm going to be a fucking idiot and support someone who DID vote for the war?


Get it, now? Maybe?

... that Obama voted against the war. For example, in an editorial that was quoted by a DUer:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5265027

Another DUer did a poll and found 7% of respondents thought Obama voted against the war:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4340680

I start with that foible, because it represents the most extreme and easily-debunked belief about Obama's war opposition and then move into the subtler topics, the misapprehensions that "higher-information" Obama supporters might have been seduced into believing.

What's the typical crap here is the disregard for lifelong progressives like myself because we don't idolize your candidate. That's the rightwing approach.


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More like angry and bitter Obama hater. It made me chuckle that you could bash Obama for not being in the senate to vote for the IWR, but yet you don't even try to explain why Hillary was consistently pro-war right up until she decided she wanted to be president (well, that's not really accurate.. she has had intentions on the presidency ever since Bill's cigar incident and she likely extorted him to stay in the marriage). Look at me, I can flame bait just as good as you. Fucking moron.... We do not need your ilk to win this election, so go back to your third rail politics, as usual.

Aah, unity!
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ah, refutation.

... whether I'm a "fucking moron" and whether the Democrats should be ex-communicating the half the party who prefers Hillary.


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worked very hard on this and it is well written, with a nice touch of humor, thanks for posting.

Like trusting my fellow progressives to be rational, kind, and not misogynistic.

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dark places and read it.

First you go off on a guy because some people repeat intruths about him, and you do it in a somewhat untruthful way, and come to the conclusion that the person who did do what those people claim he didn't must be the right choice, and now this?


This is the kind of fucked up backwards assed logic that got Bush in office in the first place.

I was not suggesting that there was anything misogynistic about your post, which obviously there wasn't.

If you're concerned about untruths being said about Democrats (cue: "But she's not a Democrat!"), you might consider having a little sympathy for Hillary Clinton, someone who has been publicly defamed in countless, repugnant ways, including by the Obama campaign and many of its adherents.

Truthiness, which is the stock-in-trade of the Obama campaign (and its "transcendence," "epiphanies," etc.), and bullying voters to "get over it" are what got Bush in office in the first place.

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Sure, she was called a "Monster" by a now fired Obama employee, but those are just words which should roll off her back after being fully vetted since day one, right?

This subthread is sadly a misdirection, your base argument remains inherently flawed.

But it's disgusting the way she's treated on DU and elsewhere, and a lot of Democrats are noticing it.

And what do you mean "just words"?

I am a die hard supporter of Al Gore and I still hope that he is drafted at the Democratic Party convention for the general election in November 2008.

You can read the discussions that have been going on since August 2006 about Al Gore being the best candidate available for the Democratic Party to win in November 2008.

In my opinion, at the end of the day enough damage has been done to both current candidates of the Democratic Party that are irreversible by November 2008.

If the Democratic Party wants to win in November 2008 then the party elders should read the following info on this forum:

Al Gore - Democratic Party candidate in 2008.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74835&perpage=6&pagenumber=102

http://vastleft.blogspot.com/2006/06/wish-you-were-gore.html

Edwards would be a good choice, too (though Al would be my favorite).

But the implications of the "elders" pushing aside the historic black candidate and the historic female candidate and coronating a white man are pretty are pretty disturbing, no?

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both Hillary and Barack admit their liabilities in this imperfect world. They drop out, go back to the Senate, and wholeheartedly support and campaign for the Gore/Edwards 08 ticket.


i have a birthday coming up. Lots and lots of candles. I'm going to do my best to blow them all out. It may turn me blue and I may faint from the lack of oxygen, but what a wish I would wish.

Cheers!:toast:

I guess if you like lies, deceit, Rovian politics, and multiple personalities, she would.

She's had the exact opposite effect on me, and I've never seen an instance where I thought she had charisma. Her campaign is the reason I can't stand her anymore.

Were it not for that line, I might have taken your OP seriously. Your being "impressed with her campaign" tells me the rest is probably bs, too. Her "campaign" has been pretty much an attempt to destroy the probably dem nominee. I don't find that at all impressive.

Nothing the Clintons have done is in the ballpark of the Obama camp's painting them as racists and the overall trashing of the legacy of the only Democratic presidency many of Obama's voters can remember... while boosting Reagan as "transformative," for good measure.

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They can stubbornly state that Hillary's campaign is terrible because they heard so on MSM. Then the blog brigade here on DU and HPo said so. If they hear it on TV and read it on the internet, it must be true. Besides all the cool people say so, and they so much need to be with the cool people.


I had a woman friend several years ago. Single, late 30s, career. She always voted Republican. She believed in a woman's right to choose. She was for gun restrictions. She was in favor of civil rights legislation and equal opportunity laws. There was not one issue where she sided with the Republican party or their candidates. When this was pointed out, she said she didn't want to be a loser. The media in the 80's had convinced the masses that Democrats were whiny losers, that you had to be Gordon Gecko to be a winner. From the newsroom to the entertainment world, the message had convinced people like this smart and progressive woman that she had to be republican to be a winner. She had been badly served in her divorce and passed over in her job where she did twice the work for half the pay of her male bosses. She felt the need to be a winner and went with the advertising.


Now the same forces are telling the insecure and uninformed that they too can be cool. Just pick the cool candidate.

A good title for it would be "The Abuses of Cool."

I never thought so many of my fellow Democrats would turn out to be a bunch of Heathers.

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Don't insult my intelligence - or the intelligence of all of the other people who have seen it the same way. The Clinton's have jumped the shark with their attempt to destroy Obama, and a lot of politicians and former Clinton backers seem to agree. 3AM, John McCain, Bin Laden, and so much more.

I don't want another warmongering liar in the WH, thank you. Clinton is going for the uninformed voter now - most of the informed voters can see what she's doing. The voters who are aware and informed - those are the ones I don't understand.

Reagan - THAT'S a "meme". I knew exactly what Obama meant, and I'm guessing you did, as well.

You can go on spreading your lies, I have nothing more to say to someone who is "impressed" by her campaign, and finds her "charismatic" - you're obviously watching her with rose-colored blinders, and I don't want to kick this bullshit any more.

Some of the thin vail of hope and change has been peeled back with your words. You might have missed your calling.

-P

To your well written, well researched post are the reason I've pretty much left DU and the Democratic Party. If it were only DU, it wouldn't bother me so much - but it's everywhere.

The 1/2 of the party that supports Obama is rabid. I'm not having it any more. "White Trash", "Archie Bunker Wing" "Racist" --- it's all they parrot and shout.

I voted Clinton in my primary and when Obama gets the nomination, I'm joining the socialists and I"m writing in Bernie Sanders for Prez!

:applause: I'm hoping the "part 1" means there's more to come!

:kick: :hi:

DemEx

:kick:

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Here they are . . . !!!

Senator Hillary Clinton
Senator Mike DeWine
Rep. David Dreier
Rep. Dennis Hastert
Senator Orrin Hatch
Rep. Peter Hoekstra
Senator Jon Kyl
Senator Joseph Lieberman
Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger
Senator Rick Santorum
Rep. James Sensenbrenner
Rep. Mark Souder

Tell me what the Clintons have done that is even in the ballpark as Obama's campaign orchestrating a completely fabricated smear that paints them as racists, something that a stunning % of DUers have been manipulated into believing . . .!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5692877

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True to form, he dodged that vote. A great profile in post-partisan courage, and a great way to be all things to all people.

Plus, as noted previously, he wouldn't sign a letter that made explicit that Kyl-Lieberman was not a war authorization:
http://thechairman66.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/joe-wilson-obama-has-hollow-judgement/

Man, what a hardcore radical!


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His rhetoric is pushing the national dialog to the right (all that complaining about bickering 60s and 90s liberals), plus his endorsers are a who's who of party regulars.

From "Audacity," let's hear what Obama has to say about the left:

"A lot of liberal rhetoric did seem to value rights and entitlements over duties and responsibilities."

"Depending on your tastes, our condition is the natural result of radical conservatism or perverse liberalism, Tom DeLay or Nancy Pelosi, big oil or greedy trial lawyers, religious zealots or gay activists, Fox News or the New York Times". (I.e., examples of "perverse liberalism" include Nancy Pelosi, trial lawyers, gay activists, and the New York Times. Even if you want to W.O.R.M. your way past those all being his examples of "perversity," he's plainly equivalating them with Delay, big oil, religious zealots, and Fox News.)

Way to move a country that was ready for real change and sell them accommodating "post-partisanship" as a pathetic, weak-tea alternative! Hillary's far more centrist than I'd prefer, but she hasn't sold our reality down the river like Unity Man has.

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Bookmarking so I can read the details later!

Very well written.

Great post! I've held my own reservations about Obama, too.