t r u t h o u t | Obama the Realist
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5 Responses to “t r u t h o u t | Obama the Realist”
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this is interesting .. i’d argue that the “politics” involved in shifting to the center in the general election (or in McCain’s case, further right) is aimed more at the Beltway class than actual voters, who are overwhelmingly against NAFTA, the Iraq War, etc
Posted on 04-Jul-08 at 2:59 pm | Permalinkgood point and probably hits the mark. the beltway with its lobbies have too much control over the election.
Posted on 04-Jul-08 at 3:28 pm | PermalinkProbably the revolution should start now. the longer it waits the more violent it will be. Sooner or later the worm will turn as in “Dune”
What saddens me is that political expediency trumps both the honesty of one’s convictions and honesty in general. Consider: If Obama had run during the primary campaign on his CURRENT positions - i.e., the ones that tack more to the center than the left - Hillary would almost certainly have won. Thus, by claiming positions and policies from which he is now backtracking, Obama did, in a real sense, “steal” the election from Clinton.
No matter how you feel about Clinton, this is a serious issue, as it says something truly sad about Obama. Clinton never claimed to be anything other than a politician, and she indeed acted like one, for better and worse.
Obama, on the other hand, claimed to be a “different” kind of politician, one who would not play “politics as usual,” or cave in to special interests, someone whose “character” and “judgment” were far and above other politicians. And people were all too happy to breathe in the sweet fumes of this rhetoric. Yet as we see, he is nothing more or less than a “politician” of the same type as anyone else.
If he TRULY had the courage of his convictions - if he truly believed in character and judgment and not playing “politics as usual” - he would not be tacking to the center, and would accept defeat if that is where his honesty and character led him.
This may SEEM like political suicide, given Beltway politics. But that was EXACTLY what he claimed - over and over and over - that he would NOT give into, even if it meant losing the election.
What a sad, sad state of affairs.
Peace.
Posted on 05-Jul-08 at 9:32 am | PermalinkHillary would be doing the same thing if not worse .. i was making the argument a few months ago that i thought Obama was “less bad” since he wasn’t affiliated with the whole DLC crowd (that the Clintons more or less founded) and had a majority of foreign policy advisors that opposed the Iraq war from the get go (unlike Hillary’s team - Holbrooke, etc) - its still a mystery what he’ll actually do if he gets elected (and he probably will)
Posted on 05-Jul-08 at 10:16 am | Permalinkbest said, “What a sad, sad state of affairs”
Posted on 05-Jul-08 at 2:35 pm | Permalinkwell for my desires and the wishes of many of us we would probably have real fight another civil war. the system is so broken only a major shift, a sea change, will truly suffice.
at least obama would be better than mccain/bush.
mb