Compromise is tricky!

Remember when Obama ridiculed Hillary for voting for the Iraq war even though she was against it?  Remember how very bright-line he made it seem?  If you’re against the war, then vote against it!  Duh.  It’s what he would have done, if he’d been there to vote.  No-brainer!

Oh, If only politicians could vote according to their consciences.  Unfortunately – as I’m quite sure he knows well – they often can’t.  As he himself recently could not, on the FISA bill telecom immunity.  What?  If you’re against it, why didn’t you vote against it?  Duh.

 

Obamarang

Whoosh!

What was that?  That was Obama boomeranging on NAFTA.

 

 

Obama and the Timewarp

You know how the Rocky Horror Picture Show Timewarp dance goes, right?

It’s just a jump to the left
And then a step to the right …

This article gives yet another example of Obama’s back-and-forth shuffle, depending on what audience he’s addressing. 

If the topic is Cuba, and the audience is Illinois voters, it’s a Jump to the left – We will end all sanctions on Cuba!  Libertad!

Same topic, conservative Miami voters?  A step to the right.  We will maintain the embargo.

It amazes me that so many Obama supporters still think he’s some kind of amazing, principled social leader, rather than a politician.  He’s going to hold firm, he’s going to convince people of the “truth”, blahbity blah.  Somehow the Obama magic will bring us all together, and the lions will lay down with the lambs, and corporations will put aside their own interest in favor of the common good, etc. 

They just don’t seem to understand that even if he wanted to act according to his ideals – and I’m increasingly starting to believe his only ideal is self-promotion – he has to, and will, compromise. 

Compromise, and pander shamelessly.  I’d like to believe he feels a twinge everytime he panders?  But the more I see of him in action … I just don’t think he does.

It will be interesting to see the effect of the inevitable reality check of the general campaign on Obama supporters, when Obama drifts to the right.  And sad, too, in a way.  People wanted so much to believe.  People wanted a hero so badly.  And he’s knowingly leading them on.

 

Cake and hybrids

Heh.  It’s funny, how impatient I feel when people criticize gaffes by my candidate.  I look at Hillary’s RFK assassination comment and think, dumb.  Misstep.  So what?  Why are people focusing on this stupid shit?  There are major fucking problems that are not getting discussed because the press is more interested in macguffins. 

Like our oil-addicted economy and soaring fuel prices.  To which Obama’s response is, switch to smaller cars and hybrids.  “Switch”?  That entails … buying.  What about all the people who can’t afford to “switch”?  They’re fucked, AND they’re contributing to the problem. 

Obama’s response is either breathtakingly callous, or completely elitist and out of touch.  He bought a hybrid. (Except, he modestly says, it mostly sits in the garage – implying he’s so good about not driving, and completely glossing the fact that, as a senator and Presidential candidate, his own car sits in the garage because he’s, oh, driven everywhere.)  Everybody should buy hybrids!  The people are suffering?  Let them eat cake – and drive hybrids.

(I bought a Honda Civic hybrid in 2004, and am reeeally enjoying the good mileage.  So my disgust with Obama on this issue is not personally motivated.)

Further – worse – how limited a response is that?  Buy hybrids and drive less?  We’re forced into car dependency because of existing transportation infrastructure.  We need investment in rail and public transit.  Then we’d actually be able to drive less.   The airline and automobile industries get insane subsidies – why not throw rail a crumb?

So, how about talking about the structural problem?  Too practical?  Too granular?  Doesn’t make for a flowery speech?  Forget it.

I have to say, this is the most depressing indication of the extent of Obama’s “vision” I’ve seen yet.   So limited and reactive.  And lecture-y.  It puts the burden of a collective problem on individual shoulders, and gives a moral spin to an essentially technical problem.

Sound familiar?  Yeah.  It sounds … Republican.  Ugh.

 

Food shortages = progress!

Secretary Paulson says astronomical commodity prices are helping developing nations.  I wonder what the people killed in food riots in Cameroon think of that?

Oh, wait – they don’t think anything.  They’re dead.

“World agriculture has entered a new, unsustainable and politically risky period,” says Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, DC.

To prove it, food riots have erupted in countries all along the equator. In Haiti, protesters chanting “We’re hungry” forced the prime minister to resign; 24 people were killed in riots in Cameroon; Egypt’s president ordered the army to start baking bread; the Philippines made hoarding rice punishable by life imprisonment.

“It’s an explosive situation and threatens political stability,” worries Jean-Louis Billon, president of Côte d’Ivoire’s chamber of commerce.

More:

Global food crisis ‘silent tsunami’ threatening over 100 million people, warns UN

Rural women could suffer due to increased biofuel production, warns UN agency

And why?

Lehman: Speculative Demand Enhancing Commodities Prices

Speculators profit, ordinary people starve.  This “helps” developing nations how?

 

Darn it, Spitzer

OK, so Eliot Spitzer was a hero to me.  I actually had a massive crush on him.  And now, of course (of course) it turns out he has feet of clay.

So OK, I briefly railed and mourned, and now I’ve moved on.  I don’t have much respect for him as a person now, but I still respect his fearless pursuit of financial bad actors – predatory lenders, fraudsters, etc.  Ah well.  News flash: people are flawed.

On one forum, one furious supporter essentially said the betrayal to his supporters was worse than to his family.  (As if there’s any point in playing who-was-more-betrayed.)  Don’t worry, furious lady, I’m sure someone out there feels just as bad for you as a betrayed supporter as they do for his family.  There, there, you’re the bigger victim, shhh.

 

Obama and vouchers

It’s kind of amazing that, vague as Obama is, with all the We Are the Ones We Hope We Can Change talk, he still manages to contradict himself.

 

People don’t say what they mean!

Obama: We’ll be out of Iraq in 16 months.

Senior campaign advisor: He doesn’t actually mean 16 months.

No, seriously. What does that mean?

The problem is that Obama is not telling people the “hard truths.”  He’s telling people exactly what they want to hear.  But as demonstrated by the NAFTA embarassment and now the “out in 16 months” thing, he actually has no intention of being held to the pretty promises he’s making as a candidate.  If he’s elected, he will be practical – as he has no choice but to be.  

This is why I don’t give much weight to people who are all like, “With his rhetorical gifts, he’s going to change the game.  He’s going to empower people.  He’ll be the one to get people to finally see their own economic interest and advocate for themselves!”  Gee.  How’s he gonna do that, when he’s promising the public one thing, and quietly assuring the powers that be, don’t worry, he doesn’t actually mean it?   

Nah.  From everything I’ve seen of him so far, he’ll say one thing in public, do the opposite in private, then use his “rhetorical gifts” to convince that he hasn’t actually sold us down the river.

Empty promises, false hope.

 

He wasn’t there, it wasn’t official, and they got it wrong.

Goolsbee “was frank in saying that the primary campaign has been necessarily domestically focused, particularly in the Midwest, and that much of the rhetoric that may be perceived to be protectionist is more reflective of political maneuvering than policy,” the memo’s introduction said. 

 

 

 

The Obama campaign response:

Obama: He never met with them.  Oh … he did…?  Oh.  Then he didn’t say what they said he said.
Campaign spokesman: The senior campaign advisor who met with the Canadian consulate did not represent the Obama campaign.
Senior campaign advisor: I didn’t say what the consulate officials said I did.  That’s crazy.

Well, I think that about covers the possibilities for denial.  A+ for comprehensiveness, F for logical consistency.

Update: Canada backpeddles on the memo.  Obama says: “This notion that Senator Clinton is peddling that somehow there’s contradictions or winks and nods has been disputed by all parties involved.”

“This notion that Senator Clinton is peddling?” There wouldn’t be the appearance of winks and nods if Obama hadn’t reflexively denied that the meeting ever took place, and Obama’s spokesman reflexively stated that the campaign official’s statements didn’t represent the official Obama position.  Doesn’t tend to inspire trust, when the candidate and campaign seem pretty well-practiced in the deny-dispute-minimize maneuver.  You can’t put that on your opponent.

I mean seriously.  Obama’s reason for why he initially denied the meeting ever took place?  “That was the information I had at the time.”  Oh.  So Goolsbee told Obama he never met with the Canadian consulate?  Then Goolsbee should be fired, because he’s a dumbass. 

If, as is more likely, Obama just did not know that Goolsbee had, in fact, attended the meeting, the proper denial is “I have no knowledge of such a meeting.”  Saying there was no such meeting simply because he personally had no knowledge of the meeting is not “the information I had at the time.”  It’s a false statement of fact.  If I remember my MPRE correctly, even a lawyer knows a false statement of fact is called a “lie.”

I’m so tired of Obama.  Or, more precisely, I’m tired of people acting like he walks on water, when he’s just another politician.  You don’t worship politicians.  You scrutinize them, and applaud them when they do the right thing. 

I support Hillary – conditionally.  I’m not infatuated with her.  I admire her spirit, I believe her good intentions, and I think she has potential to achieve good results.  But I don’t think she’s something she’s not, and I don’t think she’ll never do anything unsavory or underhanded.  Because politics requires being underhanded sometimes.  So I don’t worship her.

 

This is your brain on Obama

I’m trying to decide which is creepier, the Yes We Can video, or the We Are the Ones video. 

I think overall, YWC is creepier, with the blissed-out expressions and rapturous repetitions of the words of the Man Himself.  But the chanting in WaTO is kinda creepy too. 

But what I really want to know is, what is up with the first chick in WAtO?   Wow is her affect off.