Maybe we all would do well to remember that it was the right that created the fiction that Obama the biggest leftist since Che. Obama is largely "backing away" from positions that the right invented for him. Obama never ran as a leftist. He was never the progressive dream.
I am not a fan of Obama's vote on FISA, but it was going to pass. I wish I lived in a United States where the government was not routinely allowed to break the law. I wish that I lived in an America where large corporations were not allowed to routinely break the law. I wish that Obama was the kind of candidate that would rise to the challenge, make a principled stand and be respected for it.
Instead I live in an America where the government and large corporations routinely break the law and where, if Obama had cast a meaningless "no" vote on FISA or had joined the doomed filibuster, he would have been accused of making it easier for terrorists to attack the United States. Repeatedly. For months. Come the predictable October "surprise" foiling of a "terrorist" "plot" through intercepted phone conversations, Obama's opposition to FISA would have been yet another example of why it would be too dangerous to let a man as inexperienced as Obama sit in the big boy chair.
That said, Obama is rapidly alienating the left. This is the natural outcome of the fact that he's no longer standing next to Hillary. Let's face it, the biggest point in his favor has always been that his last name is not Clinton.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
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3 comments:
Dave,
I agree with you that Obama is not very progressive, but I am concerned by your last point.
"Let's face it, the biggest point in his favor has always been that his last name is not Clinton."
It seems to reinforce the perception by many that Hillary was taken down by the sexist notion that she was all that her husband was and no more.
I would be disappointed if you are telling me that people were only drawn to Obama because of that...
I will be supporting the nominee in the general election, but I fear progressive values and ideas will be sold short to carve out some hypothetical middle road. (nothing new, but it seems hypocritical considering the arguments BO used to argue Hillary was the status quo...)
I don't think not liking Hillary is necessarily sexist.
If I amended the last sentence to read..."Let's face it, the biggest point in his favor has always been that his name is not Hillary Clinton" would you be happier?
I of course would be smart to stay out of this all together, but two points.
One, I think you are oversimplifying to say that "the right" alone created this image of BHO--lefties did a fine old job of holding him up in a sort of ridiculous light as well.
Two, and this seems like the bigger issue, which is what is the effective thing to do at this point--by this point, I mean the moment we get to the general and everyone gets more conservative. Be outraged and vote for Nader? No! Vote for "the nominee" for pragmatic reasons? Well, yes (and I know many don't see it as just a pragmatic decision this year). Neither seem very satisfying (at least to me), but that seems to be the normal cycle these days.
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