Two writers I respect have noted the “over the top” Obamamania crowds.
Roger Simon writes on his blog about the President as celebrity, wryly noting:
I don’t know about you, but my observation in life has been that when you fall in love your judgment is, shall we say, skewed.
And another wag started an “tongue in cheek” website: “ObamaMessiahBlog“.
By having the primaries lumped together and so early, it allows the press to concentrate on personalities and horserace statistics, not issues.
So all I know is that, unlike Hillary (who after all had access to the WMD and other issues that made her husband back the Congressional motion in favor of regieme change in Iraq, in 1998).
But the Clinton appointed DNC embraced both the looney left and the anti war slogans to demonize Bush, as a prelude to her being crowned Queen of the United States.
Now that strategy has backfired. The looney left has found another Messiah, and she is left in the cold.
But the simplistic distortion that allowed demonization of Bush as it’s reason for opposing the war has essentially silenced the discussion. There are real reasons for and against the war in Iraq but except for Bush (whose reasoning has been distorted out of context) little coverage has been given to those voices.
I am old enough to remember Viet Nam, and that these same simplistic souls felt so proud of stopping the war: Yet few of them ever helped the one million boat people or protested the ethnic cleansing of the Chinese that resulted in the Communist win there.
So at least give us a hint on your plans, pretty please?
So what do we know of Obama, aside from the fact he was a kid of a rich lady who liked exotic husbands?
We know he was against the war: But so far, I haven’t heard a nuanced reason why he was against the war, or his alternative.
The only other thing I know about Obama is that when he was in the Illinois congress, he stopped a bill that would require medical care for children who survived abortion.
At least I know where Hillary stands on the issues: Probably a compromise in Iraq, abortion up to the time of birth, and we all get free health care.
But in the rush to the primaries, the enthusiasm of the hour has distorted the press and by doing so the ability of people to actually judge on a logical level.
And this is not a good thing for any of us.
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Remarks of Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama Against Going to War with Iraq
Chicago, Illinois – October 2, 2002
“I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil.
I don’t oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil.
I don’t oppose all wars. After September 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.
I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.
That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power…. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors…and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.
I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.
I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that…we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.
Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.”
Ah so. He opposes the war because it was supported by the evil neocons. He proposes regeime change instead in Saudi and Egypt. Presumably via magic wand…
As for Middle East oil: Little of it goes to the US. Most of it goes to Europe, which is why the Europeans preach asskissing tyrants, opps I mean peaceful coexistance…not just of the Middle East but Russia.
If the US wants to protect the country that sends them the largest share of oil, they merely have to protect Alberta Canada…
Hillary knows these things, and will mouth platitudes but play hard ball.
Obama seems to talk of nicey nice, but in the hard world of world politics, he is preaching nonsense.
Give me a Machiavelian Hillary over Obama Messiah any day.
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