See, this Corrente post illustrates why I can’t feel good about Barack Obama. Via Lambert:
Obama published a diary on Kos in 2005. Here’s an excerpt.* Readers, I’m not making this up!
According to the [implicitly false, remember] storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists - a storyline often reflected in comments on this blog - we are up against a sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican party.
Readers, that’s what, in 2005, Barack Obama believes is not true. And there’s no other word for it than delusional. I mean, does Obama have some other, special meaning for the word “Republican”? Like “the Carmelite Nuns”?
I think this perspective misreads the American people. From traveling throughout Illinois and more recently around the country, I can tell you that Americans are suspicious of labels and suspicious of jargon.
Oh-k-a-a-a-a-a-y….
I really have to underline that this is not a story in The Onion. It’s real. Unfortunately.
We’re not talking labels and jargon. We’re not talking semantics.
We’re talking basic, basic stuff; evidence versus delusion.
In 2005 Obama believed that:
1. Republicans are not partisan.
2. Republicans are not radically conservative.
3. Republicans are not take-no-prisoners.
I don’t know whether these views—can they actually be beliefs?—make Obama unfit to be President; after all, we’ve got Bush in there now, and he’s as floridly delusional as they come.
I am sure that these views make Obama, er, a less than ideal nominee for President by the Democratic Party, because they are wildly at variance with the experience of the members of that party.
Surely, the Republicans didn’t manage to break the world record for filibusters in a single session by joining hands round the big table and singing kumbaya?
NOTE * Caveat. The post is thoughtful. It’s beautifully written. I agree with a lot of it. But at the heart, it’s wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG about the nature of the Republican Party, the Conservative Movement of which that party is a part, and what has gone so wrong with this country. No matter how well you reason, if you reason from false premises, you’re fucked.
Wow - did you actually read his full statement? Your inserting [implicitly false, remember] into his comments is an incredibly lame attempt to change his words to your interpretation instead of what he wrote. It is clear that Obama NEVER made the claims you say he did about the Republicans. What he said was that the majority of Americans didn’t BELIEVE these things about Republicans. Big difference. Oh yeah he was right. Bush won in 2004. That is the reality that was the context of Obama’s statement in 2005.
Instead of your excerpts from the statement coupled with misleading comments that misconstrue what Obama was saying, here is one paragraph that sums up what he was saying better:
“I am not drawing a facile equivalence here between progressive advocacy groups and right-wing advocacy groups. The consequences of their ideas are vastly different. Fighting on behalf of the poor and the vulnerable is not the same as fighting for homophobia and Halliburton. But to the degree that we brook no dissent within the Democratic Party, and demand fealty to the one, “true” progressive vision for the country, we risk the very thoughtfulness and openness to new ideas that are required to move this country forward. When we lash out at those who share our fundamental values because they have not met the criteria of every single item on our progressive “checklist,” then we are essentially preventing them from thinking in new ways about problems. We are tying them up in a straightjacket and forcing them into a conversation only with the converted.”
I didn’t insert a thing. That’s the post as written by Lambert. If you’d clicked on the link, you would have seen that.
And nothing you wrote changes my mind that Obama lacks the fighting spirit to stand up to the Republican attack machine. Nothing in his post indicates he’s ready to lead - only that he knows how to read a audience. Now, you may think that’s the kind of nominee we need, and that’s what the primary process is all about. Me, I want a fighter. That’s why I support Edwards.
I’ll also point out that I expressed similar doubts about John Kerry, and I was right.
“Obama lacks the fighting spirit to stand up to the Republican attack machine. Nothing in his post indicates he’s ready to lead - only that he knows how to read a audience.”
Yup. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I’m as suspicious of Obama’s strategy of talking his way to the Presidency as Lambert is, partly because I don’t believe you can talk your way into the job. Reagan, the Great Communicator, appeared to, but he had a ferocious Republican party machine working to back up his talk. But I do think that Obama is trying to do the same thing Reagan did, make his partisan agenda sound like its opposite. Reagan could sound like the FDR Democrat he once was even as he spoke about dismantling the New Deal. Obama’s trying to sound, not like a Reagan Republican, but at least not hostile to Reagan Republicans, even as he plans to undo some of Reagan’s legacy. I’m not comfortable with his rhetoric because there isn’t a solid, longstanding record of anti-Reaganism behind it. No one who’d watched Reagan govern California could doubt he was a conservative Republican.
But part of Obama’s strategy is to talk to Republicans, and by Republicans he doesn’t mean the ones in Washington. He means voters who are unhappy with where their party’s taken the country. He’s offering rank and file Republicans somewhere to go…the Democratic Party.
I’d take Obama over anyone else besides Edwards though….
Is it possible that he is correct that they aren’t partisan? Maybe just power hungry? It is pretty well documented that Rove and those guys USED the Religious Right to get elected and laughed at them behind their backs….
Without disagreeing completely, I would argue that Obama was talking about the attitudes of the average republican in america, and not the republican party machine. I could be wrong but that is the impression I get. And it dovetails with my own experience, in that some of the nicest people I know are republicans. People can twist and rationalize what their ‘team’ is doing to a ridiculous extent to justify their support of a party whose policies don’t match their personal values. And I think Obama has the right idea here that attacking people is not the way to bring them to your side. You are all very correct that their is no compromising with the republican party, but we do need to give those moderates in the country a big tent to share with hopeful rhetoric, while pursuing our no-compromise agenda. Can Obama do it? Not sure, although I am sure he would disappoint at times (hopefully not on a bankruptcy bill or Harry Reid type level), but I think he has the right basic idea to try to pull support over from disaffected moderates.
Sorry, Obama is feel good air. Kind of like walking nitrous oxide. We’ve had a tough talking repug as front man for seven years. I guess our corporate owners feel that a ‘feel good smiler’ is what is needed to keep the angry masses mollified while they destroy the country.
[...] for progressives, but Obama is not the knight in shining armor his supporters make him out to be. Susie nails it: “Obama lacks the fighting spirit to stand up to the Republican attack machine. Nothing in [...]
And nothing you wrote changes my mind that Obama lacks the fighting spirit to stand up to the Republican attack machine. Nothing in his post indicates he’s ready to lead
then maybe you should look at his legislative record rather than what he wrote in a 2-year old kos diary? or the fact that he spoke out and actively protested the iraq war at a time that few other politicians were (even though he was beginning to plan to run for u.s. senate)?
i find the knee-jerk dislike of obama by certain bloggers on the left a little bizarre. when i lived in chicago, obama was one of the strongest progressives in the state government. i certainly have my reservations about some of his rhetoric (particularly about social security), but i have reservations about all of the candidate’s rhetoric on one subject or another.
and, in any event, he is far better than clinton, and far far better than any republican.
ah, kevin drum linked to the article i was looking for when i wrote the above comment. check out the comments of his commentator. there’s a reason why people who lived in illinois when obama was in the state senate think it’s laughable when someone says obama “lacks the fighting spirit.”
i haven’t signed on the obama bandwagon–in fact, my support is evenly split between edwards and obama. but i do think that a lot of the criticisms of obama i have seen in the blogosphere are wildly off base.
Snuzy, it’s true that he was against the war. But I haven’t seen him show any leadership in the Senate.
The atmosphere in a state senate is far different from the U.S. Senate. He attached himself to Joe Lieberman and has mostly been a very safe, cautious vote ever since. I don’t blame him for being cautious, but that doesn’t make him the man I want representing the Democratic party. (BTW, George W. Bush was famous for working with the Texas state legislature, and we all see how well that worked out.)
People keep saying, “He’s better than any Republican.” Well, that’s not really the issue. I don’t think this is a matter of simply putting in a smarter, slightly more liberal and competent technocrat in the White House instead of the disaster we have now. It’s that the political system is so thoroughly corrupted at this point, we need someone who will fearlessly attack the root causes. I believe the nation’s at a turning point, and I don’t think electing someone as cautious as Obama will cut it.
The atmosphere in a state senate is far different from the U.S. Senate. He attached himself to Joe Lieberman and has mostly been a very safe, cautious vote ever since.
huh? he hasn’t adopted any of lieberman’s policies as far as i can tell. in fact, obama is the only major candidate who’s talking sanely about iran (not even edwards is considering direct talks with the iranian government. and clinton mocked obama for even suggesting it), while lieberman is urging bush to attack the country. he’s still against the iraq war.
and, contrary to the oft-repeated myth, obama has actually sponsored quite a bit of legislation in his not-even-one-term in the senate. hilzoy outlined what he did in a post last october. and he has a remarkably good record at getting stuff passed.
obama is not a “slightly more liberal technocrat”, he’s actually proven himself to be quite progressive. i do have my problems with him: he’s adopted the rightwing framing of the social security issue, and his health plan falls short of universal coverage. but i have just as big problems with edwards on different issues (he remakes himself every few years depending on where he sees his political niche, and aside from iraq edwards’ foreign policy is vague-to-bad)
You don’t think his social security talk sounds like Lieberman?
Here’s what I’m asking: What progressive leadership did he show in the Senate? Not votes - leadership. I don’t remember him carrying water on anything big. Did he? Did I miss it?
Also, as I pointed out in our local election, there’s a huge, important difference between being a legislator and being the chief executive. It’s a very different set of skills.
If you have a problem with the man’s politics and write something substantive to that effect that’s fine. I enjoy reading this sort of discussion and learn from them.
However when you post an intentional distorted misleading interpretation of something - well it only makes me question your motives and wonder how weak you must feel your own arguments are to have to resort to that sort of dishonest tactic.
I tend to stop listening to people who are dishonest with me. Just saying.
However when you post an intentional distorted misleading interpretation of something - well it only makes me question your motives and wonder how weak you must feel your own arguments are to have to resort to that sort of dishonest tactic.
I repeat: I posted Lambert’s post as is. He added the statement you complained about, not me.
I don’t mind taking a hit from readers over something I actually did.
You don’t think his social security talk sounds like Lieberman?
other than using the word “crisis”, not really. he’s not talking about privatization. he’s talking about increasing taxes on wealthy people to “fix” the program. don’t get me wrong, i don’t think it needs fixing and i think it is dangerous to talk like it does (SS is the big negative next to obama’s name IMHO). but obama’s solution is a progressive solution, and it is the one i would support if i did think it needed one.
and besides, the big problem with lieberman is not SS, but lieberman’s foreign policy (endless war in iraq, new war in iran). obama’s foreign policy is completely different from lieberman. indeed, on iran he’s really the only sensible candidate of any of them. if you want to see rightwing framing, look at some of edwards’ and clinton’s remarks about iran.
What progressive leadership did he show in the Senate? Not votes - leadership. I don’t remember him carrying water on anything big. Did he? Did I miss it?
click on my hilzoy link above. most of the bills she discusses are things obama sponsored, not just stuff he voted for. the highest profile bill was the one to require earmarks to be labeled with the name of the person who inserted them into the bill.
and again, you’re holding obama to a standard that edwards couldn’t meet either. my impression is that edwards sponsored a whole lot less legislation in his full senate term than obama has in his half-term.
as for the memyself comment above. while i think he/she is being a little harsh. you did paste in most of the lambert post. in my mind that’s endorsing what he said. i mean, if you didn’t endorse it, why did you post it?
Because I agreed with his point about the Republican party. I’m terrified of ending up with another Kerry as the nominee.