Progressives Need To Cut Obama Some Slack

The Left is sounding more and more nihilistic, if BZ and CommonDreams posters are any indication.

Maybe, just maybe, Obama knows how to win. About time a Democrat figured that out.

Maybe, just maybe, he also knows how to lead... which would have nothing to do with what he did in order to win.

This could very well be the Democrats last chance to make any kind of difference.

So there are two choices: 1) stay home, vote for McCain or vote for Nader or 2) vote for Obama.

The former indicates a desire for the whole thing to fall apart, with all its attendant misery.

The latter indicates some hope that maybe, just maybe, we can either turn this around or at least slow down the fall to chaos.

Hell, chaos is always an option. Why not wait one more election cycle.

Obama hasn't even become president and everybody already knows what kind of president he will be. Running for pres in this country is a dirty business. What he is doing is winning. He beat the inevitable Hillary, no easy task, and he's doing a pretty good job of beating McStain at the moment. I'll judge him as president when he's actually served a little while. As much as I would like Dennis Kucinich to be president I have yet to have a reason to believe that a majority of the voters would go for him. Americans are by and large a very uneducated lot after all. I just hope, although I don't know, that beating inside the shrewd politician that is Barrack Obama is the heart of an ass kicking radical. Why don't we find out before we cut out noses off to spite our face?

You need to make several copies of this column, because you are going to have to cut him even more slack when you find out that:

1. he was quoted in the July 27, 2004 Chicago Tribune as saying, “There’s not that much difference between my position and George Bush’s position [on the Iraq War] at this stage”, and since taking office in January 2005 he has voted to approve every war appropriation the Republicans have put forward, totaling over $300 billion;

2. with some hogwash speech about appealing to independents, he chooses Joe Lieberman (or Chuck Hagel or another Republican) as his running mate;

3. with more hogwash about appealing to independents, he refuses to campaign in any "blue" states and just concedes them to McCain;

4. When Murtha called for immediate withdrawal from Iraq a year ago, Obama voyaged to the Council on Foreign Relations on November 22, 2005, to soothe the assembled elites by telling them how to "control" the wily Democrats with rhetoric;

5. in March 2005, Obama went out of his way to travel to Connecticut to campaign for Senator Joseph Lieberman who faced a tough challenge by anti-war candidate Ned Lamont. At a Democratic Party dinner attended by Lamont, Obama called Lieberman “his mentor” and urged those in attendance to vote and give financial contributions to Lieberman rather than Lamont;

6. Obama voted for "tort reform" and the bankruptcy bill, thus making it far harder for people to get redress or compensation;

7. Obama voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice;

8. Obama voted to close off any filibuster of Samuel Alito and confirm him to the Supreme Court;

9. when Senator Russell Feingold made a motion to censure the President for illegally wiretapping American citizens in violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Obama declared "my and Senator Feingold's view is not unanimous. Some constitutional scholars and lower court opinions support the president's argument that he has inherent authority to go outside the bounds of the law in monitoring the activities of suspected terrorists. The question is whether the president understood the law and knowingly flaunted it." That's not the question at all.

10. voted Yes on March 2 to final passage of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act, unlike ten of his Democratic colleagues

11. Obama voted for Dick Cheney's 2005 Energy Bill which has since been deemed "the greatest pork fest in all history";

12. a large number of companies involved in sub-prime lending practices are major Obama campaign contributors;

13. he voted against a cap on high credit card interest rates, ensuring many more people will continue to stay in debt and poverty;

14. He wants to increase the military by 100,000 troops and he plans to move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, merely changing the war rather than ending it;

15. In 2005, Obama joined Republicans in passing a law dubiously called the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) that would shut down state courts as a venue to hear many class action lawsuits. Obama in effect voted to deny redress in many of the courts where these kinds of cases have the best chance of surviving corporate legal challenges. Instead, it forces them into the backlogged Republican-judge dominated federal courts. Why would a civil rights lawyer knowingly make it harder for working-class people to have their day in court, in effect shutting off avenues of redress?;

16. While in the Illinois Senate, Obama voted to limit the recovery that victims of medical malpractice could obtain through the courts;

17. Obama opposed single-payer health care bill HR676, sponsored by Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers in 2006, although at least 75 members of Congress supported it;

18. He wouldn’t have his picture taken with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom when visiting San Francisco for a fundraiser in his honor because Obama was scared voters might think he supports gay marriage. [Former Mayor Willie Brown admitted to the San Francisco Chronicle on February 5, 2008 that Obama told him he wanted to avoid Newsom for that reason];

19. On September 29, 2006, Obama joined Republicans in voting to build 700 miles of double fencing on the Mexican border (The Secure Fence Act of 2006);

20. Obama acknowledges the disproportionate impact the death penalty has on blacks, but still supports it, while other politicians are fighting to stop it;

21. Obama has fallen into a dangerous pattern of capitulation that he cannot reconcile with his growing popularity as an agent of change

And these are just the things Obama has already done to undermine his own campaign so that McCain can win -- just as he was hired by Karl Rove to do. Now that they have beat Hillary Clinton in the primary, there is no stopping the Republicans from maintaining the White House for another 100 years or so.

And the totally ignorant sycophant P.M. Carpenter is still shilling for the end of Democracy. And most of you fools are still lapping it all up like so much turkey puke.

Keep that "Obama" slack handy. This is not the only time you are going to need it.

We focus on one issue and allow the one issue to influence all other issues before us. Like 5th graders on the playground we scream," If we don't get our way on this, we will hate you and everything else about you!" We will marginalize an entire movement based on one presumptive decision that has yet to be made. My, we are smart, strategic, intelligent progressives! Obviously, the FISA issue has brought out enormously strong feelings from some Democrats. As well, it should! We have lived through an eight year nightmare of our Constitution being bypassed, our president and executive office yielding monarch-like, unchecked power, our congress being a lap-dog for the presidency and the MSM being the duped court recorder for it all. The result is an unjust war, 5000 American lives, untold hundreds of thousands of civilian lives, torture, hidden prisons, outing our own CIA operatives for person gain, trillions of dollars of non-bid contracts, cronyism, ineptitude and the decline of American influence in world stature, peace, science, business, education and just about every measurable entity available. Every American with a brain and a conscience should be pissed. However, let us not cut off our nose to spite our face. To make the changes we need to end this nightmare we have to WIN. Since day one, Obama has said this is our movement AND he will bring about CHANGE. He did not say, "I will make every one of you happy." Moreover, to believe Obama or any one person can agree with all of my agenda is foolish. However, he did promise CHANGE, he did promise to end this damn war, he did promise to start doing things differently without the lobbyists and the money of influence and he did promise to listen to the people. Nothing that Obama has said or done since day one has varied from that message. We have a choice. Do we desire to keep electing people to the highest office in the United States who are less intelligent than we are? Do we want to keep putting people in our highest elected office who never had to worry about things the common person has to face every day? Do we want morally bankrupt people making decisions that affect our lives and our children’s lives? I don’t know about you but I can vote for a president I trust will do the right thing when the time comes. The differences I have with him, I can live with knowing in the big picture this country is going to be a hell of a lot better than it has been in the last 8 years. Moreover, the political process has been raised to a level of intelligence and issues and change away from the attacks, conflict and inertia of the past 30 years. Be able to see the forest through the trees. And see the mountain and see beyond the mountain. To quote the great words of Dr. King, “I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!” We are so close….

Cut Obama slack? Dead wrong.

Is no one worried that Obama is Bill Clinton with a jump shot and a much cooler wife?

Four more years of Republicans equals disaster. Four years of Clintonesque presidential posturing with no real plan for radically altering our energy use, halting the transfer of wealth upwards, or helping out the quietly desperate that grow by millions each year in America, also equals disaster.

Obama's abandoning public campaign financing is actually a brilliant, pragmatic, and even principled move. But on real issues, he's downright feeble. Bowing at the altar of AIPAC while Hillary's corpse was still warm was a thoroughly unnecessary move, and was a green light to an Israel contemplating bombing Iran.

Go to Obama's website, and try to find a single effective policy proposal on any topic. Good luck.

Obama, like his hapless predecessors Gore and Kerry, must be rescued from the modern Democratic campaign disease: abandoning traditional Democratic principles and drifting rightward to appease a mythical American public considered too dumb to vote for their own interests.

Put Obama's feet to the fire. Or don't complain when he becomes Bill Clinton II.

Screw public financing; it's a great idea, but we've been clobbered over it for too long; it's time to throw an elbow, and maybe the GOP will get the picture. This is not the problem.

The problem is giving the telecoms immunity from prosecution and/or lawsuits, implicitly giving W immunity after he leaves office. The problem is continuing to subsidize ethanol, even as it ravages the world food market and hurts the environment even more than gasoline. The problem is that progressives ARE "most Democratic voters", not "standing distinctly to the left", and unless O comes through with something to energize the base of the party (that's us progressives again, in case you still haven't figured it out, PM), he is going to continue the grand tradition of the Democratic party of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The problem is that Obama is no progressive, no liberal; he is, at best, a moderate. Our view is skewed because we have fringe right-wing lunatics proposing that we enshrine the 10 commandments into law on FOX news, but no left-wing "radical" can get anywhere near a camera. We can live with a moderate, but he can't claim to be keeping to the middle-of-the-road by compromising between moderation and conservatism to give us right-of-center policies.

Sure he has to play it safe and be as non-threatening as possible, but he has the energy and the charisma to stand up against the worst injustices being committed; the problem is that he doesn't have the will.

Obama must stop the FISA bill. It's his line in the sand. Trying and failing isn't good enough. Obama is a great speaker. He must prove that he's a great leader.

The FISA bill allows the fascists to spy on Americans for more than a month without court permission, and even if they spy on us for years there are no meaningful consequences. That means even more blackmailed politicians. That means even more fascism.

Obama either stops the FISA bill or else he's just another neocon pretending - like Pelosi, Hoyer, Emmanuel and Lieberman - to be a Democrat.

You know, we cut Bill Clinton some slack when he capitulated over and over, and killed a million Iraqis with his illegal sanctions. We have given Nancy Pelosi some slack after she took impeachment off the table, rather than put enormous pressure on her. What PM doesn't seem to understand is that Zbigniew Brzezinski, Kissinger and David Rockefeller's capo won't give Obama any slack, nor will AIPAC, nor will Warren Buffet, or George Soros, or all the other money bag Wall Street speculators who are the ones who really filled his campaign coffers. You don't seriously believe that his record breaking fundraising was from folks like Buzzflashers, who could barely get BF a pittance of what Obama has raised, do you? The Left has given so much slack over the past 28 years, of Reagan, Bush I, Clinton's triangulations, Gore giving away the election, Kerry giving away the election both of which were stolen, and now we are to give Obama SLACK? If there is no backbone here, how can PM possibly expect Obama to have a backbone, and indeed, he has backpedalled way too much already. A dual USA/Israeli flag pin on his lapel at the AIPAC meeting? Puleez.

If Obama wants to jump head first into the Blue Dog camp and vote for telecom immunity, he doesn't deserve our trust. I don't care about him not taking public financing. If elected, he will have to swear to uphold and defend a constitution that he has already pissed on. I'm tired of being told that this is OK or that is OK and to look at the big picture. The picture that has been painted so far is not looking very pretty.

We need change in this country and the only way we're going to get it is to stop supporting the Corporatist Republicrat party.

PM - you are correct. As crappy as some of Barack's current and future decisions are and will be, they are done to court the 'center' - its the only path to victory in November; and they are mostly located in OH, FL, PA, WI, NM, NH, NJ, NC and CO. If Obama betrays our trust IF we are lucky enough to see him win, then we can take up that battle later. But its clear that voting for McCain, or Nader will lead to Bush 44 - and that is unthinkable!!

Let's be honest, we knew the GOP was going to try and hit Obama with the financing issue. That's been coming for months. It's one of the few cards they have to play. The media seems to largely ignore the fact that Obama is already publicly financed by small donors.

That being said PM, you act like the FISA bill is a small issue. We're talking basic rights. You can't stack FISA with Telecom Immunity, alongside ethanol and his refusal of basic public financing and call them comparable.

By your rationale, voting in favor of the Iraq War by Hillary Clinton was also a shrewd, but valid move. I didn't think voting for the Iraq war was a shrewd political move, I thought it was horrific - as is supporting this abomination of a FISA bill.

Obama was already going to win this election in a rout. We all know this. In two weeks Obama's gone from a statistical dead heat, to a 15 point national lead. A FISA controversy wasn't going to change this.

Supporting this FISA bill goes against everything we as Democrats stand for. We're all lambasting McCain for courting the nutty religious right, then we're supposed to applaud as our candidate bows down to the Republicans to adopt their talking points?

That's Bullshit.

The capitulation of House Democrats on this recent FISA bill is pretty terrifying. The loss of Constitutional rights is at stake. I don't see what is unreasonable about demanding that Democrats STAND THEIR GROUND on this issue. This includes the presumptive Dem Presidential nominee. If we don't push for it here, then WHEN?? Obama as capitulator? What good is all the rhetoric about "change" if his behavior doesn't match?

It's just that of all the issues I expected our constitutional lawyer nominee to triangulate on, ceding the 4th amendment of the Constitution to these radically unpopular GOP subversives isn't one of them. I understand the politics and the need for Obama to run to the center and not unnecessarily alienate red state superdelegates, but this isn't even good politics because there's no constituancy for the passage of this bill even there (which proper leadership and democratic framing of the issue would expose). There is a huge debate among the so-called practical and idealistic wings of the Democratic Party on exactly how much slack Sen Obama should be cut on this issue (as I found out in an afternoon of sado-mashochism surfing the threads at Balloon Juice), and I believe this week's Senate debate should tell us more about Obama's intentions. Heretofore now, the thing I really liked about Obama has been his fearless ability to reframe supposedly strong GOP memes (such as our need to use diplomacy with our enemies rather than simply bomb them into the Stone Age) and make it palatable to the red state rubes, the ability to properly use rheteric to advance democratic principles even there. In this case he has chosen not to even try to do so--on THE MAIN ISSUE IMPORTANT TO THE LEFT. So you may color me somewhat perplexed. He still has my vote of course. Money, not so much (see Barry's reference to ActBlue--a better way to go at least in my current state of disappointment). But there is no hand-ringing or teeth-gnashing here. I am simply disappointed to read that Obama supports the House compromise/capitulation. A much bigger and more disquieting development is WTF the House leadership is up to even bringing this up for a vote. Yes, the red state Bush Dogs feel they need the cover. But I personally believe Pelosi and Hoyer et al are up to their necks in complicity with the knowledge of this illegal evesdropping and are performing a huge, cynical CYA exercise to protect themselves as well as Bush. And, heaven forbid, it could even be worse. It could be that a sizeable portion of dems simply believe in the Unitary Executive and believe the Constitution quaint and a relic of a bygone era. As I watch Congress operate I sometimes wonder if their bodies and minds have not been supplanted by pod people from outer space. We seem inexorably headed to a police state (no hyperbole) and no amount of screaming from the rooftops seems to be slowing it down. As for Obama, I don't blame him for this. But human nature is repleat with examples of power corrupting. I can't imagine any politician--including Obama, who may have best intentions to use these extralegal powers benevelently--to voluntarily give them up once given them. And perhaps the next president will not be so benevolent. This is why we scream. Forget the so-called "Left" up in arms, ALL Americicans should be screaming about this. This is not a time for triangulation or capitulation. Our Constitution hangs by a thread. And but for few exceptions, all I hear from Democratic leaders is crickets and pablum.

Progressives aren't giving Obama crap over the campaign finance thing - that's the wingers, who want to deflect attention from the fact that McCain is breaking the campaign finance law.

FISA, on the other hand - and contrary to your assertion - does indeed go to fundamental principles. Government has no right to spy on people without a warrant, period. You ignore the 4th Amendment at your peril.

If Obama campaigns as a Republican and we just shut up and vote for him, what can we expect from him in office? Nothing good, I can promise you.

We may have no choice but to vote for him - or, rather, against McCain - but we have every reason to give him all the crap we can muster when he screws us on our fundamental principles. And holding government to account, which is exactly what the FISA bill is about, is absolutely a fundamental principle.

I'm a Democrat, not a toady.

AC
More liberal media at The Sideshow

Promises made or broken, policies adopted or abandoned, principles held or let go, will not decide who is president next year. Basic emotions, fear and hate, will either win or lose the election. If McCain wins, fear of losing money to the lower classes and hatred of the tanned races will be the fundamental operatives. If Obama wins, the Civil War will at last go cold. This is small consolation given that war with Russia, China, Islam, Drugs, Terror, Poverty, Food, Water, and Weather are all hot, warm, or warming up. Obama could promise to solve all problems, and he should, but we shouldn't be so stupid as to believe that we are not going to be deeply disappointed when he contradicts large groups of his supporters after he takes office. My greatest hope is that he will offer coherent explanations of why he betrayed his constituency, which is not something McCain's supporters could expect from him. I further hope that the presidency is not thought of as a prize by Obama, but an opportunity. That I can also not expect of McCain.

I'm going to cut Obama some slack. I'm going to vote for him. I'm going to cut him some more slack, I'll probably put up a yard sign. I'll cut him even some more slack--maybe. I'll keep tossing a few bucks in the kitty, and I may show up for local Obama activities. BUT I'm going to keep reminding him he has a base--people like me who have been with him since day one or shortly thereafter--people who were sick and tired of "wink wink-nod nod" politics. Any electoral group imperils itself if it lets a candidate take it for granted, and that certainly includes progressives or liberals, whatever we're calling ourselves these days. So, Senator Obama. I'm with you still despite that foul statement on FISA, but don't expect me to be less than shrill in my condemnation of your position, and don't expect me to stay with you enthusiastically under a landslide of similar trimming tactics. AMike

There's only one way, since the Democrats in Congress capitulated to Bush on telecom immunity, to stop it from becoming law. And that's to challenge its constitutionality in court on First Amendment right-of-petition grounds. By not demanding that the government produce court warrants for their customer records, as required under the Fourth Amendment, the telecoms violated the Constitution -- period. Americans have a right under the First Amendment to seek redress for their Fourth Amendment right to privacy having been violated in this manner. The telecom-immunity provision of the revised FISA statute is patently unconstitutional on its face and must not be allowed to stand. Where the hell are you, ACLU?

I for one agree with Carpenter. Yes, I'm very disappointed in the FISA "capitulation" and Obama's support of it, and I am disappointed in his backpedaling from public financing - BUT, this is a campaign for our lives this time and we can't allow it to slip through our fingers yet again. Consider that after the Clinton overstep and consequent supporter temper tantrums about backing the Democratic nominee (sorry, but it is the truth of the situation), that there is an 'Appalachian' base that has been led to believe Obama doesn't care about them, that McCain's fairly steady 40+ percent of the vote in the polls in spite of being a totally odious candidate, and the fact that when elections are close, the "numbers" get flakey - like in Ohio and Florida - but only to the Republicans benefit--- there are some rather large hurdles Obama still must overcome to keep the election on a landslide path. Let's face it, the GOP can and HAVE cheated when the vote is too close. So, Carpenter is right I think when it comes to playing hardball to win this one. Change is not going to happen overnight, and if Obama gets in the WH, we have to push him and the Dems in Congress hard to affect that change. We have to then vote out the republican-lite dems - which includes Obama if need be, and replace them with those who will do the work for the people of America and not their speical interests groups. I can't delude myself to think it will happen right away - but if a Republican gets into the WH I know it will just take that much longer, if ever. I have hope that Obama is a good man who will work for the greater good, but he will need to be pushed by an active public. There is much to overcome in this corporate-controlled government, and it will take time and strength of numbers to make that happen. Can we do that? At least with Obama I feel there is still a chance.

I could not care less about the decision on public financing. Any idiot can see that the public financing system, as currently constituted, is a fraud. But the truly awful FISA bill that congressional Democrats crafted is nothing short of capitulation to the Republican wet dream of a police state. This is a bill that never should have seen the light of day, and Obama could have stopped it by informing Pelosi and Hoyer that he would publicly oppose it. In failing to do so, he has shaken the confidence of his progressive supporters that he is truly a man of principle and, thus, worthy of our trust. There was absolutely no need for him to cave on this matter in order to win voters in the middle. He simply needed to make the case that it is not necessary to trash our fundamental rights in order to fight terrorists.