Lately, Barack Obama has become everybody's favorite punching bag.
What's left of the Left are going after him for abandoning gun control in support of dubious Second Amendment rights, as well as his revised stance on FISA, newly-nuanced views on troop withdrawal in Iraq, and his desire to extend, and expand, George W. Bush's faith-based initiative programs, to name but a few. Then, of course, there's Obama's recent contention that a woman's mental state should not exempt her from the Supreme Court ban on late-term abortion.
These are all full-throated assertions, and no one is suggesting, for a moment, that these recent seismic shifts to the center aren't letting the air out of the Obama balloon. But, they are also showing that Houdini isn't running for president, and even Houdini would be hard-pressed to run a campaign without interference from party elders.
The Democrats, and so-called progressives, are doing such a good job of attacking Obama that McCain is struggling to come up with a campaign strategy. If the barbs against the Illinois senator keep up at a steady rate, McCain won't even need a strategy---all he'll need to do is keep his mouth shut.
Clearly, the single most precarious issue, for Obama, is the war. While the economy may be the ultimate concern for working Americans, nobody takes John McCain's economic plan as anything but a continuation of that of his predecessor's, but those who oppose the ongoing occupation of Iraq will account for a greater presence at their polls than voters who support Nader or Barr.
For some, it is too bad the world comes in three dimensions. How much easier it would be if one could merely say "let's roll up our tent and go home." Yes, there are serious questions about whether a President Obama will allow for the continued occupation of Iraq long after the military leaves. But, Obama's mistake might not be that he said he intends to revisit the idea of troop withdrawal in the first 16 months he's in office, or that his decisions, as a commander-in-chief, will depend on the situation in Iraq at the time.
Curiously, like President Kennedy before him, Obama's biggest mistake might be that he recognizes, and acknowledges, that his decisions are nuanced, not obdurate, and subject to change. Doubtless, JFK kicked up a lot of dust, behind the scenes, from those whose interests were better served by maintaining, and expanding, troop presence in Vietnam, and Obama is kicking up a lot of dust by saying he is thoughtful, willing to move into the gray zone and out of the binary field of black and white, right and wrong, progressive and conservative. This scares the wits out of people.
Nothing bothers this country of the Puritans, by the Puritans, and for the Puritans more than a thinking president. Look at all the crap thrown at Jimmy Carter for not blowing up Iran when he had the chance.
But, hey, simply yelling out "stop the war, I want to get off" won't do it either nor will voting for Ralph Nader (read: John McCain). The solution is to work with the problem, not abandon it, and hold Obama to task for his pledge to have better judgment.
More importantly, we need leadership that will move us from a wartime to a peacetime economy, and one whose vision is to de-escalate, not look for more parts of the globe to preempt or provoke.
Those who argue that Senator Obama doesn't have a "plan" to get us out of Iraq are naive if they think that a Kucinich, Nader, or any other "plan" would not meet with fatal resistance from the military industrial complex. Didn't we just come out of eight years of pathological lying? Do we want to elect another president who will lie to us?
The infrastructure for war, and wartime profiteering, are deeply embedded in our country's ethos. Patriotism is inseparable from militarism. If you have any questions about that, just listen to what conservative talk show pundits, like Bill Bennett, say about guys like Wes Clark---that he's a four-star general makes him perfect presidential material. Okay, so why did we ask Pakistan's Musharraf to take off his uniform if generals are so ideally-suited for governance?
We need leadership that will address the need to continue affirmative action programs at a time when we have more youngsters of color in our nation's prisons than in our nation's universities.
In the end, those who contend that Obama represents a movement are right, and he must account to that movement, and it is up to the talking heads, pundits, progressives, and Congress to hold him accountable once he takes the oath of office.
In the meantime, efforts to sabotage him by pointing out his flip-flops will only result in a president, McCain, who has the opportunity to appoint another neanderthal to the Supreme Court, and provoke greater global hostility in the name of homeland security.
While McCain may be limping, he's not wounded, just a bit dazed. Who'd have thought that he'd be up against this kind of opponent---clearly not the designated heir-apparent. But, make no mistake, while he may need to refresh his settings, or regain his balance, McCain is far from down for the punch, and this recent effort to expose, and attack Obama can only help McCain in November.
Widely published, poet, playwright, essayist, and screenwriter; member of PEN American Center, and PEN USA. Jayne Lyn Stahl is a Huffington Post blogger.
Obama is the most progressive candidate we've seen since Johnson (Carter's wholesale deregulation of every industry in sight, which initiated the economic decline for most Americans - not rich Wall Streeters, disqualifies him as a progressive).
But many progressives would rather see McCain become president because Obama isn't pure enough for them.
They would plunge us into four more years of Bush, and who knows how many more conservative Judges just to punish ...... who? Obama? Hardly, he'll be fine. Nope, they will be punishing themselves and us too. And our descendants who'll have to fix this mess. Unless another unpure progressive wins the nomination.
Who would be more responsive to progressive pressure - Obama or McCain?
We've been hammered by 30+ years of Neo-Conservative (Reagon and Bushes) and centrist (Carter and Clinton) adminstrations. It cannot be fixed overnight.
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Houston Radical (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 76 comments)
on Sunday, July 6, 2008 at 8:34:19 PM
Johnson gave us Medicare - medical care for people 65 and over.
Johnson gave us the community mental health centers legislation that provided real help for the seriously mentally ill.
Obama gives us coverage for the uninsured at some level but an "insurance exchange" for the rest of us where, somehow, by Internet magic, the insurance companies will compete and we'll get lower prices.
You call that progressive or liberal? It's neither.
His health plan does, however, represent a ridiculous solution to health care coverage based on a blatant misconception. Insurance companies do NOT pay the bill for a huge share of those with health insurance. They are the contracted representative of medium to large companies who pay the bills themselves. The insurance company is a plan manager. So if you work for a large corproation, Obama does nothing for you because the insurance companies aren't competing. Therefore, competition is meaningless.
For the rest of us, the self pays either through a small business or our own business, this "exchange" is laughable. It exists already. You can easily price solo or small group plans on the Internet. They comnpete already YET health care costs remian high and rising. Obamja is offering a failed solution.
Johnson used government to help the people. Obama, in this case, uses his "government program" to fool the people into thinking that there may be change.
In health care, things will stay the same. The Obama people know this yet they offer it up. What's that about? Cynical, deceptive politics.
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Michael Collins (88 articles, 13 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 328 comments)
on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 1:41:31 PM
I want Obama to be president, and I will vote for him regardless of any flip-flops because I KNOW he could never be as bad as John McCain.
Any president or candidate who would not make clear that his specific plans for war or withdrawal will depend on the changing circumstances is either a fool or a liar. Obama is perfectly justified in saying this.
But FISA is a HUGE problem. You simply cannot have taught Constitutional law, and have spoken as vehemently as he has against retroactive immunity and for 4th amendment rights - and then just suddenly abandon it all overnight.
Obama needs to step back and take a long look at who brung him to the dance, get with the program, and do what he knows is the right thing. He gains absolutely no political advantage whatsoever by changing his position on FISA because NOBODY - other than the hardcore Bushie 22-Percenters- supports it. NOBODY.
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JC Garrett (34 articles, 48 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 451 comments)
on Sunday, July 6, 2008 at 9:29:40 PM
Obama has said that he and Chris Dodd are fine tuning FISA issues that Bush bullied Congress into passing such as the retroactive immunity for telecoms issue.
btw, the Senate votes on revised FISA bill tomorrow, and it will be interesting to see how the deck stacks up in terms of who else is onboard the president's train to preempt the implied First Amendment right to privacy.
As for being a constitutional scholar, I also agree, and am offended by Obama's support of the recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down D.C.'s handgun ban. The NRA has already challenged Chicago, and S.F. prohibition of handguns, and the Illinois senator's backpedalling on gun control is not in his favor. That said, it's John McCain, not Barack Obama, holding campaign rallies and posing for photo-ops with the NRA.
Again, if history is any indication, after he's sworn in as president, Obama will begin working on his reelection campaign which gives we, the people, enormous clout. He will, after all, be accountable to us--McCain, well, he's accountable to the Blackwaters, Halliburtons, and, oh yes, the missus.
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Jayne Lyn Stahl (168 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 64 comments)
on Sunday, July 6, 2008 at 10:08:34 PM
Why should people take a hands off position on Obama? If he is unprincipled and dishonest. He is too comfortable with people having nowhere else to go. I would rather vote my principles. Dennis or Ralph Nader are good men. I would rather back a principled candidate then some opportunistic party lackey. He should not back the subversion of the constitution I don't care who tells him it is politically correct or expedient. What make anyone think that isn't exactly who he is? Nancy Pelosi could care less about what progressive people think. She too was supposed to represent change. If America wants John Mccaine they should have him. There seems to be not much difference in the two entrenched party bosses. Look at what the democrats did and are doing to Kucinich. If we don't chalenge Obama now we have no right to whine later. He needs to have voters hands on him not just party bosses. If he can't fight for himself now how can we trust him once he is coronated president.
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robert braunstein (21 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 81 comments)
on Sunday, July 6, 2008 at 10:24:11 PM
"In the meantime, efforts to sabotage him by pointing out his flip-flops will only result in a president, McCain, who has the opportunity to appoint another neanderthal to the Supreme Court, and provoke greater global hostility in the name of homeland security."
And let's remember that it was he, McCain, who responded to a policy-type question by smiling and chuckling and singing, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran", - in 2006. Can still be viewed on YouTube. Isn't there something sociopathic, or psychopathic, about that smile, while reaching for the mike to start singing that song? There is, at very least, a serious disconnect between his actions, and any sense of consequence of those actions.
It was said of the 2004 election that it was "The Dems', to lose". What is different this time? What has changed? What has been learned?
"So, leave the swift-booting of Obama to the Repugs. "
And they've already begun, or are at least doing warm up exercises, via twisting and hammering Wesley Clark's "Good judgement" comments. Wait till they really get going..
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Aurora (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 338 comments)
on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 12:04:14 AM
Excellent article!Give Obama a break, unless you want John McCain to be President.I do not want four or eight more years of the devastation to our country.People that do not vote or vote for Nadar or Barr will only increase the potential that McCain will win.
Everyone needs to take actions to increase support for Barack Obama. Have some trust - Obama is gaining support all across the nation. He is turning red states to blue. Please do not ruin it for everyone's sake by attacking him.
Give Obama a break, he has had to spent considerable time dealing with the fear fueling false rumors that he is Muslim.People that will not vote for a black man, woman angry because Hillary did not win, and attacks on his patriotism.
Anyone that has read Obama's books and read about his entire career would know that he has not made any significant flip-flops.
He has not changed his stance on Iraq, the death penalty, or gun control.He has added new statements on late term abortions.
Obama is good at renegotiating to bring people together on issues, which means both sides often have to accept less than what they want.With Obama the majority side will change to the people rather than making the wealthy richer.
Dedicated to Public Service - Main Street Rather Than Wall Street - 1990 Interview about Being President of the Harvard Review.
"The president of the law review usually goes on to serve as a clerk for a judge on the Federal Court of Appeals for a year, and then as a clerk for an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Mr. Obama said he planned to spend two or three years in private law practice and then return to Chicago to re-enter community work, either in politics or in local organizing."
You may be OK with the long, long laundry list of betrayals. From No to Impeachment, FISA, Telecom immunity, War Funding, supporting the Right Wing of the SCOTUS, my God the list is endless. I am not OK with it.
Battered women stay with their abuser because they fear the unknown.
It is not psuedo progressives who rightly attack Obama. It Democratic party apologists who refuse to hold him and the Democratic Party accountable.
Just like a battered spouse who returns to be beaten again.
Not me. Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader.
I am sick and tired of cowards telling people to reward the complete cowardice or even complicity of the Democratic Party with their vote and support.
Who then wail about the continued rightward shift of the Dems.
Take a stand for God's sake.
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Michael Cavlan (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 208 comments)
on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 12:47:43 AM
We are lucky some people like Obama have survived intact after three generations of brain washing. He emerged from the primary pack because he offered an honest and refreshing choice.
This continues to appeal to young people who are first time voters. Eighty-three millions of Americans chose not to vote in the last election. Many of them may vote for Obama, if he continues the campaign that won him the nomination.
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Jason Paz (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 72 comments)
on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 3:20:22 AM
...in my support of Obama; until Clinton's withdrawal, he had made virtually no mistake--he even turned Republican attacks into political victories, like with his speech on race in America. Based on that, I thought he had a keen political sense, and a decent backbone.
Since Clinton withdrew, he's accumulated blunders. He's gone way beyond the call of duty in terms of pandering and caved in on many topics while it's clear this shameful flip flopping will not attract swing voters. Stupidly, he has compromised his integrity for no clear political gain, while the stigma of weakness and appeasement will not go away. As a character issue, I am specially disgusted by his not backing up Wesley Clark's on McCain's presidential qualifications--I find this particularly cowardly. And I think he has no political sense, and might not have what it takes to play rough with the Republicans.
I still intend to vote for him because having another deranged wingnut in the WH scares me to death, but I will be holding my nose; and if he keeps going in this direction, I will have to reach this depressing conclusion: the Dems suffer from an incurable disease and are genetically unable so stand up to the Republicans--so why bother?
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francine (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 295 comments)
on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 4:47:33 AM
When I tried to say something similar a few days ago on OEN (but not nearly as well I confess), I was scolded, I was rebuked for "simplistic thinking" (or something like that), accused of "k-street thinking" etc. I hope most folks can see that we should condem what is wrong, praise what is right, but never fail to support the only hope we have to defeat McBush. Let's discuss, but keep it civil
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Riverman (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 14 comments)
on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 8:04:21 AM
And I think it's not purely coincidental that this cretinous pandering to the right is happening right after a number of people from the Clinton campaign staff joined the Obama staff.
Triangulation was about pandering to the right when the ideas of the right--reaganomics etc. were still (sort of) working, and still popular; it was not principled, but it made sense in terms of (short term) political gains--but why pander to the neocons when their ideology is losing ground due to the economic crisis and various Bushian failures? Doesn't Obama know that fighting the last war guarantees you will lose it?
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francine (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 295 comments)
on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 8:51:38 AM
You say we must "hold Obama to task"; why "Hands off Obama"?
All the progressives I know will be voting for Obama this year, but we are having a hard time going out and selling him. "Yeah, but he's better than McCain" doesn't really work as an inspirational message. Nor do I think we are out of line trying to pressure him to give real weight to progressive prescriptions for economic recovery instead of leaving it to the corporatists to exert all the pressure. Oddly, nothing in your journal is critical of the constant drumbeat of neo-cons demanding Obama move right and give up the idea of corporate taxation, nor suggests what else we could do about it.
I'm glad the Progressive Democrats of America haven't accepted your opinion. They might not then have been electing real progressives to the House from many districts across the country, with stances very different from Obama's. Simply throwing in the towel would more likely lead to a Brazil-style disaster in which we become a labor pool willing to work for less than starvation wages, than to a better world. Serfdom lasted a millenium.
Most importantly, asking people in the party not to engage in the political process during campaign season other than to vote for whomever the Democratic machine throws up because of your opinion of what's "possible", resonates of John Dean's "authoritarian personality". It creates needless polarization in a community which until now has been okay with chaotically going along mixing people who boost Obama and find our concern laughable, with those who have to express our real disappointment with the contrast between the man's rhetoric and the way his policies are shaping up, or bust.
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ClearEye (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 13 comments)
on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 10:09:22 AM
Your article is just recycled 'Lesser-evilism' -- & this is
because no real case can be made for Obama on his own merits. You have to constantly harp on how lousy McCain is, to make a two-faced phony like Obama seem good by comparison.
Lesser-evilism is an inherently dishonest & invalid way to see the world. It's an anti-democratic basis for political positions. For instance, you screech "Hands Off Obama," as if this deceitful 2-faced militarist/corporatist somehow merits a free pass. Sorry, but in a real democracy, no one gets a free pass -- especially someone who slyly intimated he was "against the war" when competing with his rival Hillary, but the moment he sewed up the nomination, abandoned that whole act & started careening madly towards the right.
Lesser-evilists don't want to face the truth -- that BOTH candidates from the 2 big-business parties are entirely unacceptable, precisely because they're embraced by both Wall St & the military-industrial complex. That's the only reason they became the nominees in the first place. If either had seriously challenged either Wall St or the MIC, they never would have made it past the first primary.
Trying to make a case for either of these guys is a delusional exercise -- that's why Dem Party apologists can only make appeals for Obama, by dangling the spectre of McCain.
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Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1120 comments)
on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 11:52:10 AM
WHY ARE THE AMERICAN VOTERS, WILLING TO EXCEPT THE LESSER OF EVIL, AND THINKING THINGS WILL CHANGE, WE ARE AT THE POINT OF NO RETURN, AND I THINK IF THIS ELECTION GOES AS THE GLOBAL ELITE PLAN, ITS ALL OVER BUT THE TALKING ABOUT IT. ITS LIKE THE AMERICAN VOTERS DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE WHATS HAPPEN AND IF THEY CLOSE THEIR EYES IT WILL ALL GO A WAY. THIS SAD. WHY?
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RICH SHA (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 106 comments)
on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 12:26:35 PM
Obama isn't moving to the center, he is proclaiming his right wing credentials. His advisers included Zbigniew Brzezinski and Austan Goolsbee. Zbig is an unreformed cold warrior and Goolsbee is a "centrist" free trader (e.g., NAFTA) who is associated with the Democratic Leadership Conference. This is Obama sans the "change" rhetoric.
There are those of us who are not going to have faith in a candidate who so clearly indicates that he's to the right of the American public and who cynically pretends to be even a moderate liberal when he's an establishment toady.
You're addressing an audience that reads and thinks.
Stop with the insulting garbage about blind faith in Obama just because he's a Democrat. He needs to be pushed, and pushed hard, to do the right thing. It's not in his nature to address the real world outside of his political and financial circles.
I've written several articles critical of Clinton, one that criticized the NYC vote counting for Obama, and one that anticipated the Georgia-Virginia strategy thath came from Obama's campaign a few weeks ago.
I'm not going to do it but I hope some one does write about the naive thug or thug lite rhetoric of Obama supporters who go out and tell people to shut up when we're literally facing the end of the human culture that we've known because of tentative, ineffective and, ultimately, intellectually dishonest politicians who refuse to face reality.
Has Obama commented on the over 1.0 million dead Iraqi citizens as a result of the civil chaos created by the Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq?
Has he said anything about eco-catastrophes like the one facing Australia soon?
No to both. He's clearly superior to McCain but that's just because McCain is a horror show. He offers little that would indicate he'd do anything in a timely and decisive manner to save our country and world. That's where free speech and populist politics come in. We speak up. He either listens or doesn't.
But, please, stop with the "move to the center" business because he has to. He's moving away from popular opinion to the right. And you argue against the expression of ideas at a time of great peril when your candidate is on the bench during the biggest fight in the history of the world - the fight for rational action.
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Michael Collins (88 articles, 13 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 328 comments)
on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 1:24:43 PM
Unless you make more than $250,000 to $350,000, Obama is going to lower your taxes.
McCain has been making bold-faced lies and most of the media are not challenging him.Of course, the owners of the cable shows will be the individuals with lower taxes under McCain.
Blitzer did not ask Fiorina why other McCain economic adviser disputes her balanced-budget projections
HA! HA! HA! Vote for My Favorite Martian. You merely confirm what I already knew---what a naive lot Americans are. You're pushing for a re-run of Bush-Gore... folks like you are the reason JFK won election by only 1%. If you keep this up, we'll have 4 years of McCain which is what you really want. Why don't you do your homework on Ralph Nader----he's using Republican talking points against Barack----who were his fraternity brothers in college? Republicans! Yes, what a naive lot you are. You don't deserve Kennedys or Obamas, you deserve to be amBUSHed.
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Jayne Lyn Stahl (168 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 64 comments)
on Tuesday, July 8, 2008 at 12:00:34 PM
Bush was not elected. If no one voted for Nader he would have lost. If Gore had any courage he would have challenged that election. Obama has voted against the constitution He
