Obama's Advisers: Less Progressive than Advertised?

Posted by Damozel | My, Barack Obama's advisers and officials are contributing quite a little heap of embarrassments to his campaign, aren't they? 

First, there was Austan Goolsbee's little chat with the Canadians about NAFTA (Obama didn't mean it) that the bad Canadians totally misunderstood and twisted out of context.  Then Samantha Power told a far right British paper that Hillary Clinton is a 'monster' before remembering to add (too late, said the reporter) that it was "off the record."  In all the outcry over the insult, Obama's supporters seemed not to have noticed or to have cared that she also announced that his firm commitment to prompt troop withdrawals wasn't nearly as firm as progressives assume. 

Then intelligence adviser/former Bush Administration official John O. Brennan announced that he was afraid he just didn't  agree with Obama on telecom immunity.   And I don't even need to mention the Rev. Wright. 

Then there's this (via Memeorandum):

Last Thursday the Obama campaign was up in arms over the news that the Illinois senator's passport information had been breached....Well, be careful what you wish for.
Turns out, one of the three people who accessed the candidate's files works for... wait for it... Obama foreign policy advisor, John O. Brennan, president and CEO of the Analysis Corp. Brennan’s employee was the only one of the three who was not fired, merely disciplined and, CNN’s Zain Verjee reports, the unnamed employee also accessed John McCain’s files. In a separate breach, Hillary Clinton’s passport information was also breached. (Swampland)

None of this proves that Brennan was involved or even that the breach amounted to misfeasance by the employee.  Still, there is an irony in the revelation after all the (usual) outrage by Obama's supporters over the breach of his file. 

I am merely mentioning this in passing as a further instance of ways in which Obama's "brilliantly run campaign"---which I have heard people, people I thought were sensible, seriously argue is evidence that he is qualified to run the country---seems to be imploding.

Of  more concern to Democrats should be right-wing blogger's Ed Morissey's report that Obama military adviser, Gen. Ton McPeak, has made statements concerning Iraq that appear to be completely in line with McCain's and rather far from the views of the progressives who support Obama.  McPeak is the same adviser who just compared Bill Clinton to Joseph McCarthy.

Morissey says:

In an interview with the Oregonian, posted here but confirmed by me through its purchase from the archives, McPeak essentially makes the exact same argument that John McCain makes about staying in Iraq — and which Obama ridicules:

Is Iraq the last country we confront in the Middle East?

Who wants to volunteer to get cross-ways with us? We’ll be there a century,  hopefully. If it works right.

Isn’t this the exact argument McCain has made repeatedly, and which Obama derides as “a hundred-years war”? Of course it is....McCain and McPeak both argue for a big footprint in the Middle East for a very long time in order to protect American interests and to overawe the other nations there into behaving themselves.

This should raise some eyebrows on the Obama campaign’s willful deception on this point....He meant exactly the same thing as McCain. What’s more, he underestimates democracy. He wanted the Bush administration to install a military dictator with whom we could work in order to establish our Middle East footprint..  (Hot Air)

You can read the interview yourself, since the link is provided in the posting.

My question is this:  If McPeak said all this, isn't it further evidence that Obama has surrounded himself with advisers whose views are wildly opposed to those of the progressives who are pushing for his nomination and whose methods are far from consistent with the 'New Politics' for which they idealistically long? 

I'd say that it was evidence. 

As Larry Johnson said some time ago:

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.

Instead of recognizing that he is not exactly the candidate they imagine, they go on rationalizing on his behalf and making up explanations for him so he doesn't have to.  Bear in mind, these are intelligent, even brilliant people.  I have said it before; I see the man's appeal, and he's incredibly attractive and of course an unparallelled maker of speeches, but isn't this cause for concern? 

I suspect that by the time they finally let this information in, it will be too late for them to do anything about it.

Memeorandum has commentary on the passport story.

RELATED POSTINGS

Dept of Desperate Diversions:  Obama Aide Compares Bill Clinton to Joseph McCarthy

"New" Politics? Obama "Punching" and Pushing for Hillary to Drop Out (email included)

The Democratic Campaign Grows Even Uglier

Maybe 'New Politics' is All Obama's Got

Obama Doesn't Mean What his Advisers Say 

Obama Campaign Uses Bush Tactics in Fundraising Email

Paxman & Samantha Power (Before Her Faux Pas)

No Quarter's List Of Obama's NAFTA-Gate Statements

Canadian PM said Hillary's Campaign did Not Try to Reassure Canadians re: NAFTA

NAFTA-gate: Part Two

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