Transcending his flawed party, Obama talks often about restoring competitive manufacturing after Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush oversaw millions of fine jobs going overseas. A reinvestment in domestic production, engineering, farming and service sectors make the most sense in the global economy that has China, India and other nations reaching a critical mass in industrial growth and very quickly driving up energy costs.
Conservative Morality
Looking for sound ethics, we see a stark difference in traditional Conservatives and neocons. The Karl Rove playbook, perfected during the Nixon Administration uses smears, spin, guilt-by-association and general rabble-rousing negativity that both parties indulge in today. What happened to the Conservatives who felt Americans should be a shining example of how to behave? Is this what we want our small children to grow up and learn to repeat?
I shuddered a few weeks ago when Karl Rove appeared on the Hannity & Colmes Fox-TV show, extolling Sarah Palin for being a reformer. But Rove, literally nicknamed "the Architect", is more responsible for the policies of the last 8 years in Washington than any human alive. Rove is also called "Bush's Brain" for the scary symbiotic relationship he shared with Bush, controlling the 2000 and 2004 elections, and serving as senior policy advisor in the White House where dozens of criminal and Constitutional scandals have marred both terms.
Karl is also known as "Turd Blossom" for his ability to manufacture success from any situation, no matter how horribly busted it may seem, but he isn't fooling anyone, just avoiding prosecution thanks to the oft-used "state secrets" act.
I admired John McCain's candor and principles prior to this campaign. He was brutally honest when he confirmed the book Fiasco accurately depicted the Bush adminstration's failures in the Iraq war. His most valiant stances opposed government sanctioned torture, immigration and tax breaks for millionaires, but abruptly, he caved on these, his own signature issues.
He kissed the rings of evangelical leaders he'd previously denounced and even voted against a bill with his own name on it. McCain's opponent, by contrast, has proposed a budget where the sources of revenue are spelled out, and who suggests all government spending be made available online for full public tracking and monitoring. This signals to me not only more fiscal responsibility, but stricter ethics in a new transparency, putting an end to the reckless spending we've seen wreck our nation.
Mind you, I'm not blind to Obama's compromised votes or his political side - for example deftly avoiding being pinned down on past associations like Rev. Wright and William Ayers. But those figures are as meaningless to him now as Charles Keating is to McCain. I believe Obama's views do not reflect those of the corrupt Chicago political scene from which he emerged. I'd say instead that he today represents a backlash to the Tony Rezko set, who he knew he'd been sullied by in his earlier career.
Like McCain who also had his career sullied because of ties to criminals, Obama has long talked about campaign finance reform to turn away lobbyists and corporate donors. To prove this, he has conducted his presidential campaign by reaching out to the greatest number of donors ever, the smallest contribution amounts ever, and the fewest special interest, PAC or corporate donors ever - truly a campaign for and by the people, and not just talking about it, setting the example of stricter ethics himself first, outraising and outshining even the entrenched big money Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Media Morality
Radio titans Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have achieved incredible wealth by a consistent commitment to defend something they call Conservatism, but which is actually trickle-down economics, xenophobia and saber-rattling. They continue to use fear and threats to sell the need for pre-emptive wars exactly as Eisenhower presaged. Worse yet, they sanction illegal and immoral torture and rendition, a shameful blight on America's moral authority in the world.
Hannity and Limbaugh have spent decades calling for wholesale deregulation of private industry and now that the banks have gone belly up due to credit default swap calls, they merely deflect their responsibility. They also defend warrantless surveillance on U.S. citizens, and will slime and smear anyone to speak against Bush administration shenanigans, suspiciously suggesting formal ties.
As broadcasters, they are enormous successes - they have secured themselves hundreds of millions personally as they sell Bush's tax giveaways as good for all of us. But Sean and Rush are not traditional Conservatives, they are neoconservatives. Their idea of fiscal responsibility is continuing deregulation and generational theft from America's unborn children via the federal debt.
Today Sean backs away from his own history, but he's been with Bush on virtually everything, especially as Bush has all increased the deficit by 75%. A true Conservative would have said "STOP EVERYTHING - we need to leave this country in sound financial shape for the future". Instead, Hannity worries only about his children, who are set for life thanks to his hard work and dedication in supporting and defending George W. Bush's tax and war profiteering policies for the last 8 years.
We need to end the borrowing, balance the budget, invest wisely in our own future, rethinking communication and transportation infrastructure to keep us competitive. Obama's 'redistribution' of tax breaks goes not a step further towards socialism than the progressive tax distribution proportions we saw under Reagan. This is spelled out in specifics, yet cries of out-and-out marxism or red anarchy are lied about daily by McCain, Rush, Sean and the rest of the neocon pundisphere.
Obama has calculated net spending cuts while Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh and Hannity still advocate for the $10 billion per month war, forgetting we dropped shrinkwrapped skids of cash into the war zone, losing track of $8 billion in the process. The trillion or so dollars lost in Iraq will haunt our children for generations, but the families of the extremely rich defense contractors will live off interest.
Bush hasn't raised taxes for the wars, mind you, just the deficit. That means your grandchildren will curse him long after he's dead, wondering why you stood by and allowed it. This is why I believe traditional Conservatism is in crisis.
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