A Strange Kind of Complaint

ArchPundit February 12, 2007 2 Comments

Greg Sargent writes about something some Clinton supporters have written in about concerning Obama on Clinton:

A Hillary supporter writes in to argue that Barack Obama’s comments yesterday about his opposition to the Iraq War are at least somewhat at odds with what he said in October of last year.

According to Reuters, here’s Obama yesterday:

On the day after he formally launched his 2008 White House bid, Obama said on a campaign swing through Iowa that even before the war began it was possible to see the dangerous consequences of a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

“Even at the time, it was possible to make judgments that this would not work out well,” the Illinois senator told reporters, indirectly contrasting his stance with presidential rivals Clinton and John Edwards, who both voted to authorize the war in 2002.

But as the Hillary supporter points out, here’s how Obama described his differences with Hillary over Iraq in an interview with The New Yorker in October of 2006:

I think what people might point to is our different assessments of the war in Iraq, although I’m always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn’t have the benefit of U.S. intelligence. And, for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices. So that might be something that sort of is obvious. But, again, we were in different circumstances at that time: I was running for the U.S. Senate, she had to take a vote, and casting votes is always a difficult test.

The Hillary supporter points out to us that Obama was more forgiving of the pre-war failures of his fellow Dems in that interview than he is now that he’s in the race. Not a huge deal, by any means, but worth noting. We’re passing it along to keep the discussion humming.

Shrug. Okay, he won’t be nice about her incoherent positions anymore if her supporters insist.

Yepson on Barack

ArchPundit February 12, 2007 4 Comments

One of the biggest kick-offs in Caucus history

Wow. One good thing Yepson points out is that there was a good cross-section of Iowans there. A big mistake in Iowa is to bring in people from your home state to do the door knocking and such. Your organizers and such can be operatives and such, but it’s far better to have neighbors doing it in Iowa where the personal relationship means far more.

60 Minutes Video

ArchPundit February 12, 2007 No Comments

Barack on 60 Minutes—does a tour of the Old Capitol–one of the coolest places in the world. I watched the first Obama-Keyes debate there and despite Alan, the ambience was amazing.

More First Person Springfield Coverage

ArchPundit February 12, 2007 1 Comment

Chris Hayes was there and covers the tension between being the grassroots guy and the on message national politician.

The great line of the article is this:

Part of this can be chalked up to a kind of punk-rock-band-gone-MTV disaffection. People who were into Obama when he was an underground, authentic phenomenon aren’t necessarily so into the slickly produced, more pop-friendly version.

Many who have been reading this blog since 2002 are familiar with this feeling. Okay, not many since not many read it in 2002.

I was interviewed by BBC 4 and then BBC Belfast over the weekend and trying to describe the speech was a little hard. I thought it was excellent by most standards of American politicians, but only decent for Obama.

I’m a bit more positive about what Obama is doing now than many of the early adopters, but I also understand the concerns and observations and Chris does one of the better jobs laying out the thought processes I’ve seen. I think there is something else going on in the rhetoric that Chris points out is in tension between unity and progress. I’ll cover that later, but it’s a good article so take a look.

Uppity

ArchPundit February 12, 2007 1 Comment

Ahem, Salon has some explaining to do.

Self-Organizing and the Obama Campaign

ArchPundit February 7, 2007 4 Comments

Markos criticizes Obama for his statement that he saw something new at the George Mason rally that could reshape the political world.

There’s a bit more to the story though than what he said in that story and it reminded me of a good post I forgot to link to the other day just before the motherboard went kaplooeey.

Not Paul Begala at Blog PI picked up on a link to an old Chicago Reader article I had linked to which contained the following:

What makes Obama different from other progressive politicians is that he doesn’t just want to create and support progressive programs; he wants to mobilize the people to create their own. He wants to stand politics on its head, empowering citizens by bringing together the churches and businesses and banks, scornful grandmothers and angry young.

His own words:

In America … we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations.

And what people said about him then — Johnnie Owens of the Developing Communities Project:

A lot of organizers you meet these days are these self-anointed leaders with this strange, way-out approach and unrealistic, eccentric way of pursuing things from the very beginning. Not Barack. He’s not about calling attention to himself. He’s concerned with the work.

And Madeline Talbott, “lead organizer of the feisty ACORN community organization”:

He is committed to organizing, to building a democracy. Above all else, he is a good listener, and we accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer.

It might be stretching it to call the campaign an organization as of yet–it’s staffing up and the shortened time frame it’s operating on shows–though I think there are some incredibly bright people who will get it up and running soon enough. And as such the online activities are pretty weak as of yet and I hope to see it get off the ground.

Obama was organizing when Markos and I were still in High School and he ran one of the most effective GOTV and voter registration drives in Illinois partially based on the principle of empowering people to act on their own. The internet adds an entirely different dimension to this, but he’s a quick learner.

I do have a criticism of the Dean campaign however, and I think it’s effort at creating self-organizing wasn’t nearly effective as another campaign that year–the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. It’s often an undertold story about how Bush increased his vote percentages nearly everywhere–even in deep blue states where he didn’t spend any money–like Illinois.

How did that happen with Barack Obama heading up the Illinois ticket and Alan Keyes depressing the Republican turnout–self-organizing in churches. Karl Rove seldom talks about this, but he is a master at using the networks created by religious conservatives to do a lot of the work without ever telling them or even communicating directly with them. They are motivated because the man they were backing seemed to them to be their guy and they set up phone banks and canvassing operations in their own community.

In contrast, Dean’s campaign attracted people from around the country to go to Iowa. Not the same effect as having your neighbor do it for you.

So, yeah, there is something to Obama’s statement sounding naive (I think it might, just might, have been a bit of useful naiveness), but it’s not Dean for America that deserves to be the model, it’s Bush-Cheney 2004.

Ummmm…Is This Parody

ArchPundit February 7, 2007 5 Comments

David Sirota claims no one has criticized Obama for the message of hope. In the same post, he criticizes (in fact in the title) hope as a theme.

Of course, it’s also a smack back at Edwards who said

“Identifying the problem and talking about hope is waiting for tomorrow.”

All this is, is two candidates talking a little smack and I like both of them, one more than the other, but both of them. Suggesting that Obama is setting up a strawman is silly. He’s specifically addressing something Edwards said and the implication is clear. I don’t want this to turn into a Edwards bashing thing here because if Edwards or others win the nomination (other than Biden (lol) or Clinton) I would hate to eat my words, especially when the field has some great candidates.

There are several issues here. First, Sirota holds Obama to a higher standard than say Edwards or Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer–both great guys and great Democrats. He also gives ammunition to the right wing every time he pulls this crap and his stuff shows up on right wing blogs like Illinois Review often distorted using his own words. It’s fine to criticize other Democrats, and all of us say things that can be misconstrued, but Sirota has made a one-sided pattern of this with Obama for some reason so let’s reprint the open letter to David from a while ago:

I can’t claim credit for the following, though, I have to say, I pretty much agree with it. If you need someone to ’sign it’, I’m fine with me being that person. And for the record, I think Schweitzer is a political stud.

OPEN LETTER TO DAVID SIROTA

Dear David:

I enjoy reading your blogs and opinions. However, as I read your recent
post about Barack Obama?s speech on faith and politics, it got me to
wondering.

You start by saying, ?One of the most infuriating behaviors among some
Democrats these days is their willingness to create fake straw men that
undermine progressives and reinforce false narratives about the Democratic
Party.?

Leaving aside for the moment that if blogs couldn?t do this it?s likely
they would go out of business, I read a story just two days before Obama?s
speech about another Democrat whom I think you are very familiar with ?
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. You live in Montana and you?ve been
paid by Schweitzer during his past campaigns.

Governor Schweitzer told Paul Nussbaum of Knight-Ridder newspapers that
?Democratic presidential candidate with hopes of carrying Montana would
have to tap into that independence and speak frankly to the gun issue,
Schweitzer said? ?I’d tell him to tell people he respects their Second
Amendment rights?.?

While you scold Obama for allegedly setting up a straw man to falsely
display courage saying Obama ?doesn?t offer any names to tell us who
constitutes? the ?we? who ?fails to acknowledge the power of faith in the
lives of the American people.? ?Why? Because there are none. What
Democrat of any prominence at all in America ?fails to acknowledge the
power of faith in the lives of the American people?? I can?t think of one.
It is a straw man – one that might make Obama look like a man of ?courage?
or ?principle? – but one that dishonestly reinforces right-wing
stereotypes about supposedly ?godless? liberals/Democrats.?

David, can you tell me ONE recent Democratic Presidential candidate that
didn?t respect the Second Amendment?

For that matter, can you tell me ONE Democrat of any prominence at all in
America that doesn?t ?respect their Second Amendment rights??

Or is Schweitzer setting up a straw man to portray himself as
?independent? and ?not some East Coast liberal? that dishonestly
reinforces right-wing stereotypes about Democrats as people who want to
take guns away from citizens, not respect the Second Amendment and as the
party that doesn?t even recognize the lawful rights of hunters?

You give Obama credit for the idea of reaching out to religious
constituencies as I give credit to Schweitzer for wanting to reach out to
those that own guns. But in your next sentence you say ?individual
high-profile Democrats need to stop regurgitating false right-wing
storylines just to promote their own individual ambitions.?

Did I miss your critique of Brian Schweitzer?s straw man arguments? I
hope your professional relationship with the Governor hasn?t caused you to
become intellectually dishonest.

You say ?it doesn?t help the Democratic Party?s efforts to better connect
with evangelicals when a high-profile leader like Obama gives a speech on
that very subject that implies that Democrats (again unnamed) supposedly
don?t care about religion.?

Does it help when Brian Schweitzer implies that Democrats want to
confiscate the guns of law abiding citizens?

Again, maybe I missed your critique of your former employer.

One aspect you failed to mention in your post is the section in Obama?s
speech that chastises the leaders of the Religious Right who threaten the
separation of church and state or who use faith to divide people or those
that use faith to cynically justify the political result they want. Yes,
Obama had the courage to put that in his speech even if you failed to
acknowledge it (maybe you didn?t read the entire speech?).

I noticed in the article about Schweitzer that was proud to be both a
member of the NRA and happy to have the endorsement of the NRA.
?Politicians in Montana are extremely skittish about crossing swords with
the NRA, and that’s why it’s a coveted endorsement? said Montana State
University political science professor Craig Wilson.

I wonder if Schweitzer agrees with everything the NRA says? Does he
believe that those who enforce gun law are ?jack-booted thugs? as the NRA
once called them? Even Former President George H.W. Bush disavowed that
statement. Maybe Schweitzer believes there aren?t enough guns in America
or that terrorists who bought guns at unregulated gun shows shouldn?t be
subject to a criminal background check?

Maybe Brian Schweitzer has the ?courage? to speak out against the NRA? Or
maybe I missed that courageous speech and your blog post scolding him too.

More likely, Brian Schweitzer believes that guns don?t kill people, people
kill people ? the regurgitating of the same false right-wing storylines
just to promote his own individual ambitions.

PastorDan on Middleclassness

ArchPundit February 6, 2007 1 Comment

Street Prophets Pastor Dan addresses the ridiculousness of the Trinity story

Shorter GOP: religion in politics is good when we agree. It’s divisive and wrong otherwise. Judging by how far they’re stretching to find some kind of dirt to pin on Obama, I’d say they’re pretty worried about his potential.

My bet–teh gay!