Kathianne
05-19-2008, 06:03 PM
It pays to know one's weaknesses:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obamas-iraq-minefield/
It is merely a matter of time before Barack Obama — the self-proclaimed antiwar candidate — will have to face his contradictions, falsehoods, and alarming displays of ignorance on Iraq.
May 19, 2008 - by Michael Weiss
Scanning the daily press, an American voter is likely to come away with the following characterization of Barack Obama: he opposed the Iraq war from the start, he conscientiously opposed it even when public opinion was against him, and if elected president, he would withdraw U.S. forces from there immediately. There is every reason to assume that Obama’s antiwar credentials have enabled his all-but-certain victory in the Democratic primary, and yet few have attempted scrutiny of those credentials (the New Republic and Commentary are the rare exceptions), let alone analyzed Obama’s policy prescriptions for how to resolve a smoldering crisis in Mesopotamia. As with much of his electoral appeal, the stump catechisms of “hope” and “change” have eclipsed Obama’s more wavering rhetoric about Iraq over the past five years. And as for what he plans to do going forward, his ideas are not just frighteningly ill informed and out of date, they’re not even on nodding terms with the realities in a part of the world that, since 9/11, has held a monopoly on our attention.
In October 2002, the then-Illinois state senator addressed an antiwar rally in Chicago, where, describing himself as no pacifist, he affirmed, “I… know Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors… and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.”
Obama went on to campaign for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as having been against regime change, ab initio. He lost that contest to Chicago favorite Bobby Rush, but has congratulated himself ever since for, as he put it in a debate at Dartmouth College in 2007, “telling the truth to the American people even when [it was] tough…standing up against this war at a time where [sic] it was very unpopular. And I was risking my political career, because I was in the middle of a U.S. Senate race.” Left out of this courageous resume is the fact that it was in his proximate political interest to take the position he did. He was trying to appeal, after all, to what the New Republic’s Michael Crowley called a “coalition of lakefront liberals and African Americans,” and he was running in solidly Democratic state from a district - Hyde Park - that was heavily antiwar. Obama’s own campaign manager at the time, Dan Shomon, admitted, “He knew, and I knew, that the liberal progressives were key in any Democratic primary.” Obama may very well have been sincere in his opposition to the war, but he could not have adopted any other position and still have had a shot at winning a contentious Senate primary. Also, his courage in telling harsh truths to the American people cannot account for why he twice removed his Chicago speech from his presidential campaign website - a curious elision for a man who claims greater prescience and “purity” on Iraq than any of his opponents on either side of the aisle.
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http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obamas-iraq-minefield/
It is merely a matter of time before Barack Obama — the self-proclaimed antiwar candidate — will have to face his contradictions, falsehoods, and alarming displays of ignorance on Iraq.
May 19, 2008 - by Michael Weiss
Scanning the daily press, an American voter is likely to come away with the following characterization of Barack Obama: he opposed the Iraq war from the start, he conscientiously opposed it even when public opinion was against him, and if elected president, he would withdraw U.S. forces from there immediately. There is every reason to assume that Obama’s antiwar credentials have enabled his all-but-certain victory in the Democratic primary, and yet few have attempted scrutiny of those credentials (the New Republic and Commentary are the rare exceptions), let alone analyzed Obama’s policy prescriptions for how to resolve a smoldering crisis in Mesopotamia. As with much of his electoral appeal, the stump catechisms of “hope” and “change” have eclipsed Obama’s more wavering rhetoric about Iraq over the past five years. And as for what he plans to do going forward, his ideas are not just frighteningly ill informed and out of date, they’re not even on nodding terms with the realities in a part of the world that, since 9/11, has held a monopoly on our attention.
In October 2002, the then-Illinois state senator addressed an antiwar rally in Chicago, where, describing himself as no pacifist, he affirmed, “I… know Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors… and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.”
Obama went on to campaign for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as having been against regime change, ab initio. He lost that contest to Chicago favorite Bobby Rush, but has congratulated himself ever since for, as he put it in a debate at Dartmouth College in 2007, “telling the truth to the American people even when [it was] tough…standing up against this war at a time where [sic] it was very unpopular. And I was risking my political career, because I was in the middle of a U.S. Senate race.” Left out of this courageous resume is the fact that it was in his proximate political interest to take the position he did. He was trying to appeal, after all, to what the New Republic’s Michael Crowley called a “coalition of lakefront liberals and African Americans,” and he was running in solidly Democratic state from a district - Hyde Park - that was heavily antiwar. Obama’s own campaign manager at the time, Dan Shomon, admitted, “He knew, and I knew, that the liberal progressives were key in any Democratic primary.” Obama may very well have been sincere in his opposition to the war, but he could not have adopted any other position and still have had a shot at winning a contentious Senate primary. Also, his courage in telling harsh truths to the American people cannot account for why he twice removed his Chicago speech from his presidential campaign website - a curious elision for a man who claims greater prescience and “purity” on Iraq than any of his opponents on either side of the aisle.
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