Insidious Real Goal of Reporting on Supposed Obama "Flip-Flop" on Iraq

All the chatter over the last 24 hours on cable news has been about Obama’s supposed "flip-flopping" on the Iraq War.  Besides the fact that these "allegations" are utterly baseless, the right-wing-inspired blathering has distracted us from a very substantive discussion of policy which Obama offered in Fargo.

There are a few things I have found disconcerting in these past few days.  It kind of reminds me of November 2004 when I looked around and I could not believe the amount of support for Bush.  This time, it is closer to home and I cannot believe the support for Obama's flawed stance.

Heated debate about whether Obama is selling out to his corporate sponsors rages on largely ignoring some basic principles of American presidential elections.

No democratic candidate can mount a serious, credible, and effective campaign without corporate money.  Despite the strength of his grassroots support, Obama could not possibly raise the approximately $500 million that he will need during the campaign without turning to major support from large corporate donors.

Another important principle of presidential elections is that you cannot win in November without either winning some southern states or winning a significant share of the independent/undecided/moderate vote.

Yet another reason why leasing more territory for offshore drilling is a ridiculous idea: 30 million acres of land already leased for oil and gas drilling has gone unused.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

Friday's opinion page features at least two items of note.

Also in the A section, a well done piece on why the GOP has had to shift gears in dealing with the Obama campaign.

It does indeed seem we're seeing a shift in campaign coverage. On the part of, at least, NYT.

To observers of the Middle East and Palestine, the inept 'warfare' is matched by poor words.  Year after year, a constant barrage of rhetoric is as misguided as the bullets, mortars, and rockets.

A recent exchange of civilian casualties illustrates insanity.  To begin, or respond, or continue things (you choose depending on your religion) Hamas showcased ability to blindly fire a mortar, striking a paint factory and killing a 52 year worker.  In turn, Israeli helicopters targeted Hamas militants, but the missile missed and killed an 8 year old girl.

Rather than apologize, spokesmen aped the other side and appeased their own thugs.  Hamas said the operation was response to "nonstop agression against our people."  Not to be outdone, an Israeli spokesman said Hamas "would be held accountable".  Despite the lack of logic suggesting that paint is a tool of "aggression", or that the 8 year old was "accountable" for the mortar attack, neither side blinked at the contradictions.

In an election with the Middle East dominating foreign policy debate, how can Obama confront the 'apologist' and 'appeasement' tags in a region that has no concept of owning up and each side appeases only their own thugs?  Could withdrawing aid make them both sorry?        

I received the following angry one-liner from a friend, the same friend who had originally urged me to vote for Obama in the primary when I was still undecided:

Subj: Obama is a worm!!
The republicans BELIEVE what they believe and are not ashamed of it—the democrats do not believe anything...

My answer:

What's got your knickers in a twist? Obama's a politician, a politician, and a damn good one at that. The primaries are over, he's moving to the center, because that's where the election will be decided and he knows that it's far far far from settled (at this point in 1988 Dukakis was cruising to victory over Bush the First). Judge him by what he does if (and it's still a fucking huge if) he gets elected, not by the tactical maneuvering he's doing now.

Anyway, this notion that the dems have no principles but the repugs do, please! I want to throw up. Just to take McCain, supposedly the straightest-talking, maverickiest, john wayne in their deck: just off the top of my head a list of issues on which he has not just maneuvered but totally changed his prior positions:

Over on www.msn.com the head story is "On Iran, top military chief sounds like Obama". He, like Obama, is promoting more negotiations with Iran before military action.

Now on a day where the media has fallen into the republican "flip-flop" trap we need to make sure stories like these break through. For the web savvy people out there how is that done? I don't see it on Digg or anything and it is sad this is breaking on 4th of July weekend (not that the media would cover it anyway). I think after a day like today we need this story to get some legs and make it through the beginning of next week.

First, lets read what subject A had to say in 2004:

But look at the region whence al Qaeda came. Not only has the Taliban been overthrown, Afghanistan just this week adopted a new constitution agreed to by a loya jirga (grand council) representing every part of this fractured tribal society. It is an astonishing development in a country with so little experience in representative government and ravaged by more than a quarter-century of civil war. And it came about as a result of American force of arms followed by American diplomacy.

Subject A

Some believe we just need to elect better politicians. Others say the system is too broken. I believe we need make the system into our system, and I will tell you how. We can create a government that responds to our interests; one that will oppose FISA; one that will oppose the PATRIOT act. We must fight to reclaim the government for not just Democrats, but for our agenda---universal healthcare, civil liberties, good education, a strong environment, a strong ecyyonomy, and civil liberties for all.

Its amazing to me how little commentary there has been on McCain's brief visit to Colombia.  

During the day of the visit people were trying to make sense of why McCain would go to Colombia, a country that rarely grasps the imagination or stokes the emotions of the American public, in the middle of the Presidential campaign in which the main issues have little to do with South American policy.

And then of course there ended up being a stunning hostage rescue operation that afternoon that transfixed Colombia and that was ready to be sold in a nice anti-terrorism package on American evening news with none other than John McCain in a guest-starring role.

What a coincidence!

It's deeply disappointing because he didn't address the real issues that FISA-bill opponents have raised. He glided over them, stated his positions without addressing the reasons many of us feel betrayed (details after the jump).

That's what politicians do.  They figure out their positions and repeat their talking points. They don't engage in honest dialogue.  They avoid the difficult points.

We all hoped that Barack was something unusual: the politician who stood on principle to the maximum extent possible, who was as honest with us as a winning politician can be.  Who was committed to a genuine dialogue with his supporters, to building a real movement for change from the ground up in which we could really trust him as a leader. But if he doesn't address the real problems people on the ground raise, if he ducks those issues, then he's not that guy.

I'll vote for him.  I'll probably even give him money and work for him.  I'll still hope for him to do something great.  We desperately need a Democratic president. But if he won't take us on honestly, he's not that guy.  And that's why his statement is so goddamn disappointing.

Okay, I'm very disappointed about this FISA business. Today's post from Senator Obama doesn't change that. I am very impressed with his willingness to allow these expressions of dissent on his own website. (This is cross-posted there.) This acceptance of disagreement and the importance of listening to disagreement and engaging it represents the leadership style I want to see in the White House.

This brings up a question of priorities. What's more important: leadership style or the protection of the constitution? I suppose I wouldn't care what style he embodied if I felt that our constitutional rights were being soundly protected. So, if there were no other considerations, I might opt to withdraw my support based on this.

The Preamble of The Constitution of the United States of America is:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice,insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Bush Preamble:

We the corporate powers of the United States, in order to form a more perfect bottom line, establish injustice, insure slave labor and free trade, provide our corporate friends large defense contracts, destroy the middle class, and secure the belssings of liberty to the mighty dollar and our personal prosperity, as we ignore and walk all over this
Constitution of the United States....

This is Glenn Greenwald's take on the statement Obama made this afternoon.

"This statement has so many equivocations and vague claims as to be worthless. In a society that lives under the rule of law, government officials and corporations which break our laws are held accountable by courts of law, not by vague promises from politicians of some future "review" and "recommendation" process grounded in claims that we can trust the Leader to do the right thing, whatever he decides in his sole discretion and infinite wisdom that might be."

This is his conclusion, and I have to say that after reading the whole thing I entirely agree.

I like the Constitution as much as anybody. But given that the CIA and FBI have always done shit under the table, and that Obama says he intends to try to work against key provisions of FISA in the Senate and as Pres: I have to ask, What the heck are we focusing on here? Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

Per the AP, we've lost half a million jobs since the year's start:
62,000 jobs lost, off nearly half-million for year

In June alone, employers got rid of 62,000 jobs, bringing total losses so far this year close to a staggering half-million -- 438,000, according to the Labor Department's report released Thursday. The economy needs to generate more than 100,000 new jobs a month for employment to remain stable.

And the unemployment rate is moving steadily higher:

The jobless rate held steady at 5.5 percent after jumping in May by the most in two decades. Still, June's jobless rate was considerably higher than the 4.6 percent of a year ago. The unemployment rate is expected to climb through the rest of this year and top 6 percent early next year.

In a post titled "The baseless, and failed, 'move to the center' cliche" Glenn Greenwald argues that centrist Democratic presidential campaigns are "just an unexamined relic from past times, the immovable, uncritical assumption of Beltway strategists and pundits who can't accept that it isn't 1972 anymore -- or even 2002." Basically, his argument is that the reason Democratic candidates have lost in recent presidential elections is that they have run centrist campaigns: "What makes Democrats look weak is their patent fear of standing by their own views." Greenwald has consistently been one of the best sources of analysis on issues like wiretapping, torture, and civil liberties - but on this one, he's 100% wrong.

Recently, there's been a lot of chatter about the FISA opposition group on MyBarackObama.com, which today became the single largest networking group on the entire site, claiming 15,000+ members and counting.

Following the initial scoop by TPM's Greg Sargent, a number of national news outlets have since reported on this story, including The Times, The Post, The Nation, and most recently, USA Today.  In all the articles, the group is characterized as a truly grassroots effort launched by Obama's core supporters, who have cleverly harnessed Obama's own technology to organize against him.