Recently in Barack Obama Category

It was early July of an election year when a bona fide liberal, a staunch defender of the progressive cause was facing a contentious election against an entrenched conservative Senator who would pull out all the stops; painting his less experienced challenger as weak on the tough-guy stuff of national security, a pussy when it came to fighting and killing the evil-doing muslamonazi terror.

Despite being nearly incomprehensible on the stump and surrounded by corrupt and incompetent cronies, the Conservative Senator knew he could count on his legion of lobbyists to fund his campaign of fear and lies. The insurgent challenger correctly judged the temperament of an electorate that was sick to death of GOP rule, but leery as always of something unfamiliar. But he also knew that the only hope for his cause was to beat the Conservative. That was job one.

And politics being what it is, the liberal challenger was put in a box with few good options. He was in the House of Representatives at the time and the day came when the abomination known as the Military Commissions Act came up for a vote, complete with the despicable abolition of habeas corpus clauses and hideous codification of torture. A law so egregiously contrary to what this nation stands for, not even a Supreme Court more to the right than the day it selected Bush as the 43rd Resident could find a way to make it Constitutional, and has knocked it down at every turn.

Sherrod Brown (D-OH) turned his back on his principles and voted for the MCA, a decision he lived to regret but pledged to make up for that mistake. His vote against FISA is one step in that direction.

Barack Obama made just as profound a mistake by not doing all in his power to stop the legislative pardon just handed to the telecom giants and the criminal cover-up by the White House for committing over 30 consecutive felonies by reauthorizing their illegal surveillance. Obama was in a similar box, with bigger stakes and fewer options than Brown in July of 2006.

There were only four sides to the box
.
1. Don't show like McCain.

2. Vote for FISA like he did, reluctantly while on record endorsing the defeated amendments that would have stripped the bill of the telecom immunity clauses.

Or . . . Fight the bill which leaves two possible results.

3. This junior Senator cashes in his political capital before even accepting the nomination of his party for President, leading his slim majority from the back bench and convincing enough Republican Senators to honor his filibuster, thus handing the Presumptive Democratic Party Nominee the legislative coup of the millennium, confirming that he is indeed the second coming.

4. Obama leads a doomed filibuster attempt, a futile gesture that confirms the next month's Fox News talking points that the Democrats are in disarray, will not support Obama, and that he is a feckless and naive politician who has a lot to learn about leadership and the realities of Washington D.C.

He picked number 2. It was clearly the best of bad choices from his perspective. Your mileage may vary, and your Quixotic instincts are noble indeed if you believe he should have gone for 3 or 4. Would that it were true that following through on all good intentions were rewarded or even possible in Versailles on the Potomac.

It would have been the right move, but not a winning move, and America rewards winners, not philosophers. Ask George McGovern, John Kerry and Al Gore, or even Ted Kennedy about how hard it is running for President when you're a liberal, despite knowing in your heart of hearts that you are on the right side of history and have a vision of what this nation can truly become if it listens to its better angels.

Sherrod Brown has to live with stories like this, as he washes the blood from his hands:

. . . Huzaifa Parhat, a member of China's Uighur ethnic group, a Muslim people who are subject to continued oppression by the Chinese government. Parhat had fled China to Afghanistan, which he in turn left when his refugee camps was bombed by the Americans, fleeing this time to Pakistan, where he was turned over to U.S. forces for a bounty payment.

He has been held as an enemy combatant for over six years without charges. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has now ruled that absent some proof of his enemy combatant status he must be released. Interestingly, the government while continuing to press his enemy combatant status, has evidently cleared him for release -- unfortunately there is no country to which to return him. Such is the state of justice in this country seven years into the term of a president who has shamed us in so many ways that they are hard to enumerate.

I don't relish the thought of being an Obama apologist. He has more than enough of those, and chief amongst those should be the Senator himself -- with an act of atonement by President Obama, fixing this miserable FISA law and punishing those who abused their powers these last seven years again and again and again under cover of executive fiat.

However, at least Obama doesn't have detainees like Huzaifa Parhat on his conscience, or record. In fact, his extraordinary speech against the MCA was probably the highlight of his first year in the Senate.

When you are sitting in the Oval Office, or don't have to face reelection for another six years in the Senate, you can afford to be a statesman. When the election day is quickly arriving, however, it's all about politics, not principle. That's just the way it is, and Barack Obama always knew that.

One of the reasons I believe the FISA bill got rammed through now is because Obama and Harry Reid didn't want this to hang over the election like the MCA did in September of '06, when the Senate finally got around to approving what the House had done in July. He didn't want to make another speech like this, 9/28/06:

"I may have only been in this body for a short while, but I am not naive to the political considerations that go along with many of the decisions we make here.

I realize that soon, we will adjourn for the fall, and the campaigning will begin in earnest. And there will be 30-second attack ads and negative mail pieces, and we will be criticized as caring more about the rights of terrorists than the protection of Americans. And I know that the vote before us was specifically designed and timed to add more fuel to that fire.

[snip]

Politics Won Today

But politics won today. Politics won. The Administration got its vote, and now it will have its victory lap, and now they will be able to go out on the campaign trail and tell the American people that they were the ones who were tough on the terrorists.

And yet, we have a bill that gives the terrorist mastermind of 9/11 his day in court, but not the innocent people we may have accidentally rounded up and mistaken for terrorists - people who may stay in prison for the rest of their lives.

So folks, all I have left to say is that you better put on your big boy or girl panties and suck it up. This ain't bean-ball we're playing and we've got people dying out there from war and poverty and sickness, people that will keep dying if the GOP can keep a hold of the White house and keep a strangle-hold on Congress. We've got innocent folks being tortured, kid being blown up for no damn reason on the streets of who knows where, and a corporate kleptocracy raping our resources and stealing our future -- and you're all pissy about Bush bugging your phone.

Get over it. The conservatives have been fighting us liberals as if we were the real enemy in a real war. It's about time to wake up and realize we're in a war and fight back, which included tactical retreats like we witnessed this week. We got bigger fish to fry right now. We can fix FISA the same day we close down Gitmo and indict Cheney and Rove.

From MoveOn.Org, that is a nice pretty shade of blue that even matches my car.

It says "Obama '08," and it was free!

Dartboard or car?  Dartboard or car?

Quandary.

(BTW, nice move Hillary.)

My less than heartfelt answer is continued support for Barack Obama, and I'll slap the dart-hole free sticker on the car.

Why? 

Step one, rid the bureaucracy of the neo-cons.

Step two . . . (something about underwear gnomes, I forget)

Step Three, profit? Happiness? Utopia? I dunno, but we gotta do Step One.

I just keep going back to the saying, never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

That was Voltaire, who also said, "Love truth, but pardon error."

We can make bumper stickers out of Voltaire's best sayings and be even prouder of our bumper-bling.  He would still be considered a progressive today, and recognize that many of society's ills he abhorred are in full force despite a couple of centuries of revolution and "democratic" institutions.

Voltaire perceived the French bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the aristocracy to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the church as a static force useful only as a counterbalance since its "religious tax" or the tithe helped to create a strong backing for revolutionaries.

Reading Voltaire reaffirms my commitment to refer to the "Inside-the-Beltway" crowd as more than simply, "The Village" but "Versailles on the Potomac Villagers."  We've come so far to fight the same battles.   Fortunately, we're better armed for having men like Voltaire, Jefferson, Adams, Madison and Hamilton gone before us -- leaving us a framework to fight these battles against a foe too full of itself or too ignorant to even know or care who Voltaire is, and why these are words to live by:

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.

As for FISA, Like his contemporary, the "conservative" Edmund Burke who said that "Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny." Voltaire tells us that, "If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones."

We have the technology.  We can make our laws better than they are. 

That will never happen with John McCain in the White House.

Fox News continues to gun for Michelle Obama:

This is possibly why someone in the Obama campaign thought it might be a good idea to put the Obamas on mainstream celebrity-crush TV.

Maybe it's just a slow news day. Maybe Access Hollywood's audience really needed to see Michelle and Barack's family. Maybe Malia and Sasha are just the excuse you need to smile.

Part one of the interview was on last night (with three other parts slated for the rest of this week) and already there's an ongoing debate about the weeMichelles. For example, check out what O'Reilly says -- you might be surprised. There are those who wonder if it's good for the kids to be exposed to the media like this (I'm talking to you Michelle Malkin).

Me? It seems pretty obvious that the Obamas are simply being proactive and introducing their family to the country in a way that best suits them both -- the country AND the Obamas. In other words, why risk seeing your kids hounded by the papparazzi when you can bring them in front of the cameras yourself and on your own terms?

UPDATE: Obama now says it was a mistake to do it and it won't be happening again. Come to think of it, he looked pretty queasy sitting there...

Mark makes some pretty good points below. This one jogged my memory:

We won't stay home, know better than to get burned by the Nader protest vote again in this lifetime, and don't have enough clout to bring about real change.

Ah, Nader. Let me ask you a question, Mark: Why did Al Gore not gain the White House in 2000? Was it that Bush stole Florida?

Or was it that Gore did not talk more about (for example) climate change, thereby drawing the Nader vote more decisively?

Or was Gore's problem something else: that he lost Tennessee, his own home state, because the voters there thought he was too liberal?

When you have the answers to these questions, then we can talk some more about Obama's conduct in this campaign.

In the meantime, I don't have any easy answers here. At best, I guess I could say that things would have been different had Gore v. Bush been run in the context of today's Blogville. So maybe we have more power now than we think.

On the other hand, campaigns are always about winning elections, not leading movements. The time to lead a movement is after you get elected -- otherwise it ends up meaning a whole lot less than we all hoped it would.

UPDATE: If you choose "Other" below, be aware that you can (and should) enter some explanatory text in the text box directly below the radio button.

It's next to impossible this Independence Day not to be reminded how far we still have to go in building this "more perfect union" when the leader of the more liberal political party, uhm . . . evolves his positions almost immediately upon securing the nomination -- something he accomplished in no small part due to the support of the most ardent progressives and the liberal online community.

And he's walking it back, all those things we "hoped" he would be, but really never was.

What really is mystifying, or rather simply infuriating is how easily and predictably we are again left at the alter. McCain, the "Maverick" has done somersaults moving to appease his extreme right base, and the Democrats tag along for the drift to the right as well, despite clear evidence that this of all years, such a "safe" move is unnecessary.

What the politicians don't see, because there is no contrary evidence to convince them, is that the "safe" move to the right is actually dangerous, if not to the nation then to their ambition. There are no consequences for the progressive movement being ignored. We simply aren't perceived as offering the same credible threat of backlash as do evangelicals or obsessive tax-cutters and militarists. Our attention to detail, engagement and enthusiasm present a different dynamic. We won't stay home, know better than to get burned by the Nader protest vote again in this lifetime, and don't have enough clout to bring about real change.

Today the blogosphere is abuzz with Barack Obama's online address on the FISA issue. This is promising, but not heartwarming.

Yes, he used our medium to talk directly to those of us who are most vocal in our opposition to his support of this obviously flawed position. But since he didn't change his stance, Glenn Greenwald thinks the statement was "worthless," Paul Rosenberg at Open Left doesn't think Obama's statement will fool any of us that are paying attention, and Marcy Wheeler doesn't think Obama knows what he's talking about.

I agree with them all, but unsaid is that Obama knows exactly who he's talking to, and it ain't you my dear over-informed blog reader. He's talking to the under-informed, as usual. This time he's just not doing it through the usual media filter. He added a step. But his target, ally and nemesis is always the Versailles Villagers on the Potomac -- or does Digby have to spell it out for you again?

And this is because our political narratives are written by corporate conservatives and disseminated by their rich celebrity employees who actually seem to believe their "values" are shared by Real Americans. One of the most brilliant narratives was the notion that "the left" is unpatriotic. After all, suppressing dissent on that topic has kept the bipartisan Military Industrial Complex gravy train rolling for more than 50 years. It's perfectly natural that the new Surveillance State would be folded into that at the first opportunity, and the corporations that provide all the technology would necessarily want a piece of that action. There's huge money to be made in government contracts and the idea that any corporation would do something to endanger such possibilities over something so trivial as the constitution is naive. They agreed to work together for very good reasons and they do not want any interference.

But it isn't just about money it's also about political power. The effect of this decades long propaganda program has been to inculcate the idea among many Americans that liberalism itself is unserious. It's become so reflexive that any Democratic politician is automatically granted respect from the political establishment for the mere act of defying his own voters. It is considered a sign of courage and gravitas and a necessary right of passage.

What Obama considers important is winning. Not your petty concerns about the rule of law or following the Constitution. It's not like he sat down and took on commenters in a free-for-all exchange at a site like Daily Kos -- and he would have been foolish to do so. He doesn't need to. What he does need to do is have the corporate media report that he engaged us laptop hippies, was nice enough to stoop to our level for which we should be duly impressed, and still supports the "adult" position. NAFTA, Iraq, the list of rightward tacking grows daily.

In a day and age when all of the collective members of the media informed the world exactly when and where the race for the Democratic nomination was over -- because the saintly Tim Russert said it was so -- the progressive online community has a long way to go to be more than a curiosity or a prop in their play.

The lesson is, we just have to keep plugging away.

I wonder if the Village Gasbags will be able to figure out who is demeaning whose service?

“I can't speak for them, but we all know that General Clark, as high-ranking as he is, his record in his last command I think was somewhat less than stellar."
-- Orson Swindle, John McCain Campaign

Just in case there’s still some question what actually demeaning a war veteran’s service looks like:

Louis Letson: "I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury."

Van O'Dell: "John Kerry lied to get his bronze star...I know, I was there, I saw what happened."

Jack Chenoweth: "His account of what happened and what actually happened are the difference between night and day."

Admiral Roy Hoffman: "John Kerry has not been honest."

Adrian Lonsdale: "And he lacks the capacity to lead."

Larry Thurlow: "When he chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry."

Bob Elder: "John Kerry is no war hero."

Grant Hibbard: "He betrayed all his shipmates...he lied before the Senate."

Joe Ponder: "He dishonored his country...he most certainly did."

Bob Hildreth: "I served with John Kerry...John Kerry cannot be trusted."

The plain fact is, the Gasbags have no moral or rational authority to judge the matter, they relinquished their credibility and responsibility to do so four years ago.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

I like Chuck Todd (and his posse of deputies Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro) but I think they're off in the tall grass on this:

[...[D]oes this entire episode remind anyone else of John Kerry’s botched joke before the 2006 midterms -- when Kerry’s mangled swipe at President Bush got twisted into a slap at US troops?

That's a misreading of what's happening here because Clark's point was made with far more intelligence and articulation than Kerry's (despite Obama calling it "inartful" but that's another story).

Here's how I see it:

McCain, trailing badly by most meaningful metrics, wants the Obama camp to hit him hard. Why? Three reasons:

1. So that he can get as much free media as possible, but more importantly...
2. So he can play the aggrieved victim, which leads to...
3. Drawing the Republican base closer to him (McCain) in his defense.

That's it. So how's he doing? Not so good.

Obama is not the candidate that will lash out at his opponents. McCain should know this by now -- Obama is preternaturally cool (for a national politician) -- it is McCain who is the hothead. Instead of lashing out, Obama has repeatedly stated how much he honors McCain's sacrifice, but...that isn't enough to qualify McCain to be president. The longer McCain strikes back, the weaker and more petty he looks.

I think I know what McCain is trying to do: he (consciously or otherwise) is trying to take a page out of Richard Nixon's campaign playbook circa 1967. Back then, Nixon was perceived as a has-been, a loser that no one in their right mind would listen to. But Nixon figured out that if he could goad LBJ into lashing out at him personally, he could elevate his stature to that of the sitting president. And (more importantly) he could paint himself as a victim/outsider being picked on by the bully/insider. Nixon understood the simmering resentment against Johnson and knew that as soon as Johnson struck back it would draw the Republican base closer to him. It worked for Nixon back then.

But it won't work for McCain today because Obama isn't a bully and McCain isn't an outsider. Oh, he'll draw the Republican base closer to him because these are the same people that give Bush a 60% approval rating and they'll believe just about anything. But as far as getting the independents and disaffected Democrats...not so much.

Furthermore, the free media thing isn't working out so well either. For one thing, Wesley Clark has made his point with clarity ... and humility: Clark honors McCain's sacrifice, but will not concede that it automatically makes McCain the superior candidate for president. In my book, this makes him a decent candidate for Secretary of Defense or Chariman of the Armed Services Committee ... but not Chief Executive of the United States. Of course, McCain's camp simply won't accept that and continues to play the "sacrifice card" and the "military experience" card. But that misses the point and gives Clark yet another chance to repeat his point.

And you know what? Every day that this story stays alive cuts against McCain by allowing Clark's argument to be discussed in greater detail. It gives Sen. Webb a chance to weigh in. It gives McCain another opportunity to screw up by bringing in the bad actors from the Swiftboats for Slime -- the guys who trashed Kerry by trashing his military career.

Bad move Senator McCain: now YOU look like the bully. Can't you see? No one is trashing your military career. Not Clark, not Webb, not Obama. They are simply making a simple case: Being a hero yesterday does not punch your ticket to the Presidency...tomorrow.

Everyday that this issue is discussed AGAIN is another day where we get to consider whether we elect a president based on his judgment instead of his sacrifice. Hillary tried to frame her fight with Obama in a similar way -- experience versus judgment. She lost. If McCain wants to fight that battle again, he's going to lose just like Hillary did.

Elections are about the future, not the past. If McCain doesn't know that by now, he's doomed.

I’ve always thought that one of the main reasons the Village Press hated the Clintons and Al Gore was because it was so obvious that Bill, Hillary and Al were much smarter people than them all. With egos at least as ginormous as any politician, that cleverness gap had to stick in their craws in a way that it never would, for obvious reasons, concerning any Republican. But, smart as they may have been, the Clintons and Vice President Gore never understood the new rules that were being invented just for them. They were playing a fool’s game – and the Clintons still managed to beat the Village at it – because they were playing as though there were still liberals in the corporate press and that reason and truth would prevail.

Which brings us to today’s campaign. Am I the only one who thinks that the Obama campaign is winning big here and that the media is being played badly? The conversation has begun – “it’s out there” as they say – does McCain’s record as a (not-very-good) fighter jock and POW more than thirty years ago in some way qualify him to be Commander-in-Chief? At the same time, Obama “rejects the statement” and “honors and respects Senator McCain’s service.” How is Obama hurt by this? How is McCain?

And now we can let the bloviators compare this honest question to what was done to John Kerry. Remember how Kerry’s record was fair game because he brought it up and Bush and Rove pretended like they had nothing to do with the SBVT? Democrats didn’t make them up but Obama seems to have learned the new rules. As Ara likes to say, if I were having any more fun, I’d have to be twins.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

• McCain playing defense: I saw the headline, McCain campaign launches new 'Truth Squad', and thought to myself he could go one of two ways: he'd be on offense if he was supplying "truth" about Obama; or he'd be on defense if he was offering "truth" about his own record. Too bad for the hapless McCain campaign: they're offering the latter which means he's been dragged off message.
• Speaking of McCain and the "truth": What's the harm in Gen. Clark giving his opinion on McCain's readiness to be president? Just because you were a hero 40 years ago doesn't guarantee your good judgment today...or tomorrow. If you agree with Gen. Clark, sign this petition and thank him for speaking up.
• God's way of telling you you're too rich: you forgot to pay the taxes on one of your seven homes. Hey, didn't Republicans spank Al Franken for exactly the same thing?
• Vote Obama & die: Lieberman predicts terrorist attack in 2009.
• Speaking of Lieberman: Kos goes to the DLC annual meeting, calls Lieberman an "asshole" ... and is cheered! Go figure.