Posted by Damozel | At the moment, many of Obama's supporters seem to be blaming Hillary for
giving him a couple of knocks that revealed a glimpse of what might
turn out to be the Democratic idol's feet of clay. Maybe they should be
thanking the Clintons instead?
But as it happens, it's Obama's very own advisers who are suddenly apparently hell-bent on proving the allegations that Obama's campaign rhetoric really is all window-dressing and on showing him up as---well, we'll call it flexible--in his actual intention to implement his promises.
I turned against Obama (whom I initially liked as much as Hillary and nearly voted for) due to an ever-growing sense as I delved into his public statements that he is sometimes, or even frequently,---well, we'll call it inconsistent--- in his public statements. For example: while he has made political hay out of the boast that he was against the Iraq war from the get-go and would have voted against it if he could have (he wasn't in the Senate at the time), there came a time in 2004 when his opposition to it seems to have waned.
In a meeting with Chicago Tribune reporters at the Democratic National Convention, Obama said, “On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago.... There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage.”(Chicago Tribune)
This is especially interesting in light of his having just come out with the following statement:
[O]ne of my advisors had said that in a interview overseas that well Senator Obama would not… he has given a time frame for withdrawal, but obviously it would be subject to decisions and the situation at the time....
I was opposed to this war in 2002. If it had been up to me we would have never been in this war. It was because of George Bush with an assist from Hillary Clinton and John McCain that we entered into this war. A war that should have never been authorized, a war that should have never been waged.
I have been against it in 2002, 2003, 2004, 5, 6, 7, 8 and I will bring this war to an end in 2009. (The Politico)
Well, maybe his opposition in 2006 only wavered for just that one moment.
But if he doesn't have a consistency problem, it seems rather clear that he has an adviser problem.
First of all, there's that little glitch over Austan Goolsbee's alleged conversation with the Canadians over NAFTA. First the Obama campaign---and the Canadian government---denied that any conversation ever took place. Then the AP found a memo that had been circulated by the AP that certainly did seem to indicate that there had indeed been a conversation. While the Obama camp protests that its position is misrepresented in the memo, its protests tend to be slightly less credible in the face of its own misrepresentations.
Since then, an article in the Canadian press brought temporary relief to Obama-haters and Hillary-supporters by suggesting---on the strength of one unnamed source's recollection---that it might have been Hillary's campaign that contacted the Canadians all along. Ah ha! they all shouted. It was Hillary all along.
Sadly, there isn't a scrap of evidence for this, as D Cupples and I have pointed out. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has flat-out denied it. This need not dismay Obama's supporters, who should feel free not to believe Harper, given that his government previously denied that it had ever spoken to Obama?
But then what about this?
In an interview on the UK program "Hard Talk," Samantha Power"downplayed Obama's commitment to quick withdrawal from Iraq."(The Politico) When challenged on the Iraq Plan that he's posted on his website, she said:
"You can’t make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009," she said. "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator. He will rely upon a plan – an operational plan – that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground to whom he doesn’t have daily access now, as a result of not being the president. So to think – it would be the height of ideology to sort of say, 'Well, I said it, therefore I’m going to impose it on whatever reality greets me.' (The Politico)
At The Newshoggers, Cernig states:
[T]his...really does cut to the heart of Obama's current support base and to his own claim - which is far more than just a policy promise - to be different from the usual run of political hacks.
Yet again, I'm forcibly reminded of Tony 'all things to all people" Blair, and the disasterous misadventures of Iraqi occupation and surveillance state. America so doesn't need to be taken in by that kind of con job. Obama needs desperately to restore some credibility, at least for me, if he's not to be seen as what the Clinton campaign wants to paint him as - a snake-oil statesman. (The Newshoggers)
Once again, if he is a snake oil salesman, it seems to me that it's in the interest of his supporters to have this revealed, however painful they may find the revelation. If he really is talking out of both sides of his mouth, shouldn't his supporters want to know?
But maybe the problem isn't with Obama at all, but with his advisers:
According to ABC, Obama's intelligence adviser begs to differ with Obama's stance on telecom immunity. Though Obama voted last week against extending immunity to telecoms, his adviser would like for you to know that he begs to differ and will continue to urge his position.
."I do believe strongly that [telecoms] should be granted that immunity," former CIA official John Brennan told National Journal reporter Shane Harris in the interview. "They were told to [cooperate] by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context...I know people are concerned about that, but I do believe that's the right thing to do."....
That wasn't just a personal opinion, Brennan made clear to Harris. "My advice, to whoever is coming in [to the White House], is they need to spend some time learning, understanding what's out there, identifying those key issues," including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, he said -- the law at the heart of the immunity debate.
"They need to make sure they do their homework, and it's not just going to be knee-jerk responses," Brennan said of the presidential hopefuls. (ABC News)
In case you don't know, Brennan is "an experienced hand. Brennan headed the National Counter Terrorism Center in his last job in the Bush Administration. It was under John Brennan’s watch that the Bush Administration issued false statistics on the number of terrorist attacks in 2004. He tried to cook the books and keep the public in the dark that terrorist attacks had soared to unprecedented levels." (No Quarter)
Um....oooookay. At least Obama doesn't seem to be planning to go along with this. For now, anyway.
So let's give him the benefit of the doubt: it's not Obama, it's his advisers.
Larry Johnson at No Quarter asks:
These people cannot be trusted to accurately represent their candidate’s public positions on key issues and Senator Obama wants the American people to trust his judgment in selecting folks to run the bureaucracies that he already admitted he can’t run? God save us.
I keep wondering when progressives will notice that Obama's people are far more Bush-like than advertised. But it is starting to look as if the penny won't drop till it is too late.
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Damozel,
I'd encourage you to listen to Samantha Power on BBC's "The Interview" before deciding that Obama's only getting advice from the hacks one expects to see in Presidential campaigns. She's gone, of course, but I was touched to think of a presidential candidate getting advice from someone who's really a human rights activist, not a calculating realpolitik type.
I guess we've gotten to that stage in the campaign where it won't be about what people really think anymore, just what they get caught saying in a "gotcha" moment, but I'm unhappy to think we no longer can hear candidates talk honestly about what matters in the nomination struggle now.
Let's hope that however it turns out, we see real change come November.
Posted by: billkav | March 08, 2008 at 06:58 AM
Hi Bill,
I agree with you in that I wish this race weren't bloody to the point that issues are taking a back seat (and that the Dems are being so divided that McCain may end up in the White House whichever D gets the nomination).
About Ms. Power, there's an extreme irony, as I pointed out yesterday. As a human-rights expert, she KNOWS that one root of human-rights violations is dehumanization of others (the oppressed).
And yet, Ms. Power showed in a moment of candor that she thinks of Sen. Obama's opponent in a de-humanized light ("monster"). She didn't want the public to know her sentiments (hence, "off the record") -- but alas, now we do know.
I can't help but wonder if that's how Obama's advisers and campaign big-wigs talk about Hillary amongst themselves when journalists aren't around.
We saw George Bush dehumanize many opponents after 9/11 (e.g., Tom Daschel, who lost his race in part because the dehumanization worked with fearful voters).
We expect that from most modern Republicans and some cynical Dems -- but certainly not from a candidate who has been trying to sell himself based on the idea that he is above nasty politics and has clean hands that he will use to fight Washington's ways in general.
If Sen. Obama hadn't campaigned that way pretty heavily since January (and, via implicit comparison, essentially called Sen. Clinton dirty and old), "Monster-gate" wouldn't be an issue now.
How are you doing, btw? I'm so glad that the screenings have gone well. Let me know via email when I can post another plug.
Posted by: D. Cupples | March 08, 2008 at 10:31 AM
Yeah, this whole thing is basically a race to fill the current news cycle with a favorable "gotcha" moment.
I couldn't care less about all the NAFTA stuff; as I said before, neither candidate made any promise that they will have any trouble keeping, and neither of them has any intention whatsoever of repealing the whole deal. This is 100% spin cycle, 0% real politics.
"Monster-gate" -- I mean, my goodness, is this NEWS? Power was clearly pissed off about the way the campaign played out in Ohio (and judging by Hillary's McCain>Obama comments of late, the way the campaign is headed), and vented. She said some very inappropriate things that were explicitly intended to be off the record, NOT campaign rhetoric. Unfortunately, the newspaper interviewing her decided that ignoring her intention on a technicality, and getting some free publicity, was worth making her lose her job. When it went public, she immediately apologized and resigned. Seriously, this is news? Somebody being screwed by an interviewer, caught with their pants down, and losing their job deserved a "-gate" designation?
As far as Iraq policy goes, Obama explained rather clearly what he meant in 2004 in the last debate, when he said (roughly) "once you drove the bus into the ditch, there's only so many ways to back the bus out." As for not relying on the "plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate" - again, this is news? OF COURSE you're going to look at things and tweak them if you take office in 10 months. Obama is essentially saying "here's what I think we should do right now", which gives us as voters a much clearer sense of what mindset he's operating from. As a rational voter, I know that things will be adjusted a little, but knowing what starting policy they will be adjusted FROM gives me more information. If he does deviate from this as president, he will be expected to give a clear explanation why. He's telling me what I should expect from him as president. This is not a bad thing in my opinion.
Posted by: Adam | March 08, 2008 at 12:28 PM
What you said about dehumanization struck at the heart of what's been increasingly bothering me about the Obama phenomenon.
His message of transforming politics is inpirational indeed, but his ardent supporters appear to see it only as a message for those who don't support him and don't take it to heart themselves. When Clinton goes negative, it's a bad thing. When they call her foul names and speak of her as if she invented evil, that's not considered 'negative', that's speaking truth. The hypocrisy in some quarters is astounding.
I still like Obama, but I'm watching this as a competion between two politicians, not as a contest between good and evil. Hillary is flawed and so is Obama. They are humna beings, after all.
I'm more interested in who has the best health plan, etc.
Posted by: vecene | March 09, 2008 at 04:19 AM
Adam,
Most voters aren't as rational (or knowledgeable or tuned in) as you. When they hear a campaigning politician say he or she will get the troops out in 16 months (or 30 months, whatever) they tend to believe it.
When a top adviser says that the campaigning politician doesn't really mean it, less-in-tune voters tend to smell double talk. That's what makes it news.
Power's Iraq interview happened before the "monster" comment. I suspect that the Obama campaign wisely started thinking about distancing itself from Power AFTER it got wind of the Iraq interview but before the "monster" comment.
If so, Rightly so -- given the public's PERCEPTION of the so-called NAFTA "double talk."
Power didn't "get screwed out of a job." She was a volunteer. Furthermore, she handled her position as a campaign representative very badly (personally oriented nastiness -- as opposed to just attacking Clinton's issue stances -- that Power had hoped to hide by going "off the record").
That's no way to represent a campaign or a government (except, maybe in the minds of Bush Adminsitration officials).
Lastly, the "NAFTA-gate" issue is not about the merits of NAFTA or both candidates' similar positions. It's that evidence surfaced that Obama's adviser had edited (for concerned Canadian officials) what Obama had only days earlier said to Ohio's (and the nation's) voters.
Admittedly, it wouldn't be news if the conversation hadn't taken place -- or if Obama's campaign hadn't denied that it had taken place before coming around to admitting that it did take place.
Even if I supported Obama, I'd see that as news (and a tad disturbing, given that the campaign is partly about cleaning up the ways of Washington).
Posted by: D. Cupples | March 10, 2008 at 03:50 PM
vecene,
I'm with you re: being more interested in health plans (and the economy, the war, contractor fraud, corporate crime...).
I don't really have bad feelings toward Obama, as much as I do toward the way his campaign has gone. What first bothered me (in January) was the campaign's implications that voters had to choose between "Change" and "Experience" (which aren't mutually exclusive concepts).
I also resented the implication that Obama represents shiny-new politics while Hillary represents dirty-old politics. They've both slung enough dirt to convince me that neither candidate has clean hands.
You said it perfectly: they're both politicians and flawed human beings.
I just wish that the media and the more ardent supporters of both candidates understood that.
Posted by: D. Cupples | March 10, 2008 at 03:57 PM