He Changed His Mind? Release The Hounds!!!!

I had to watch Barack Obama restate the same position over and over. You see, he said that he would remove all U.S. troops from Iraq in sixteen months from the day he assumed the title of President of the United States.

He also said he would consult with the generals commanding these troops on their feelings regarding a pullout of this magnitude. This sounds to me like someone told Senator Obama that sixteen months is a stretch, maybe even undoable. What to do? There are three options available to Senator Obama:
1)Pull out all of the troops in sixteen months as promised, regardless of the consequences, including loss of life.
2) Listen to the generals you appointed and see what they have to say and let your decision be balanced with their input.
3) Pull a mask off of your face, revealing yourself to be John McCain and start chanting "a hundred more years, a hundred more years!"

If you are a liberal and are thinking of voting for someone other than Obama, than you are pouting a lot. You are pouting because Hillary didn't get nominated, or Dodd, or Gravel, or you still think Nader should run, and you think all rock music stopped when Ian Hunter slipped off of the charts. You must stop this now.

Remember, these people for whom you invest so much really don't care that much about you (or for you for all I know). I remember walking up Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown in the seventies and watching groups of rich white kids gathered around Eugene McCarthy like freezing fingers around a campfire, celebrating the heat as much as the glow. He repaid the liberal affection by voting for Reagan in 1980. Thanks, Gene, what a guy!

We have had eight years of a president who fired people who didn't agree with him. Now, we have the potential for a man who will listen to those who know more than he does on a variety of issues, and he gets slammed.

If you're going to be that rigid, stop the masquerade and work for James Dobson. He too, is very inflexible.

Comments

[Sumocat]

"We have had eight years of a president who fired people who didn't agree with him. Now, we have the potential for a man who will listen to those who know more than he does on a variety of issues, and he gets slammed." -- Right on! My problem with Bush is not so much that he's always wrong, but that he sticks by his mistakes no matter what. Mistakes should be fixed, not ignored.

[Progrocker]

Indeed, release the hounds. His position shifts illustrate that he pandered to those of us who are Progressive Liberals all through the primaries. Once he was the last standing we get reversals on core issues he convinced us he shared with us like removing troops from Iraq and ending this war for oil. This sounds like all the Republican garbage we have heard for the last 8 years.

His position reversal regarding FISA is inexcusable. It seems not important to him that we have equal justice in this country, that the status quo which is the multi tiered system of justice where the rich and powerful are not held to account for crimes that everyone else would go to jail for is ok.

He wants to continue Bush's "Faith Based Initiatives" which are nothing more than a way to create a huge flow of taxpayer dollars to religious (Christian) groups, a direct conflict with the establishment clause of the Constitution. It is an unconscionable policy that must be reversed.

I was starting to believe that just maybe he was the person we needed to get behind to begin the process of reversing the dishonoring of our country and the raping of our economy that the Republicans have orchestrated and that the Blue Dog and DLC type Democrats have cowardly supported. His recent actions have blown all of that away like so much smoke in the wind.

Change he says? Yes we can he chants? That's not what I'm seeing.

[KaAp]

I am not a liberal ... I am a leftist ... please try and understand the difference since it is significant. I supported Obama because he seemed to go towards the left (not liberal) ... he inspired my children (who have flirted with alternatives and have often played with groups like the new anarchists --- not to be confused with traditional anarchists) ...
I am angry that I wasted my time and my money on someone who moves to the right ... I do not believe the nation has time for baby steps ... we need drastic action ... and so --- although Nadar won't get my vote (he has become a joke and I hold him partially responsible for what happened now since he promised he would not run in Florida and guess what he ran in Florida in 2000) ... I may not vote ... and that too is a statement. A move to the center is a move that this country cannot augur.

[KillTheMessenger]

Nader is your man! By voting for him you will make sure John McCain gets elected for a third Bush/Cheney term.

[ProudLiberalDan]

Obama, or any Democrat, is not "entitled" to anyone's vote. If Nader or McKinney offer a more suitable platform, then they should be able to vote for their "first choice", not the lesser of evils.

There is no faster way to push someone to voting for a minor party candidate than telling them they have to vote for the lesser of evils instead.

You'd be more effective explaining the progressive change we can hope for under a "centrist" Obama.

[wayoutleft]

consider green. i'll skip the link. ideally obama will have a landslide become a fairly close win with a left party - or combination of parties- well into double digits- in case we're viewed as acid frazzled neo-hippies without a clue about the neccessity of expedient opportunism in the real world.

[imagine0594]

There's 2 things that pop into my mind when reading this: 1) What is wrong with challenging Obama and holding him accountable, and 2) What is the big deal with Nader running? This is a democracy, or at least it is supposed to be, and challenging candidates and having a free election is what democracy is all about. I am free to challenge Obama; it is my right, and it is really my duty to do so as an American citizen. Nader is free to run if he wants to. Right???

[WWWexler]

The Iraq flip flop is a slap in the face to the progressives who delivered the votes for Obama's nomination.

Period.

But the showstopper for me is the faith based initiative.

Nader '08. Because the Dems can't help themselves from being slaves to corporate America.

-Wexler

[Danigirl65]

Have you not been listening?? WHAT FLIP FLOP?? What he is saying now is pretty much what he said in the beginning. So it might not be exactly 16 months, that is the end goal IF conditions permit. Don't you think our military personnel deserve to be removed safely and efficiently UNLIKE the conditions they were put in there under?

As far as the faith based initiative, I have no problem with it. It currently exists in a very broken state; what is wrong with fixing it so it works properly?? Trust me, there are a lot of things in our government that are in a very broken state that, if fixed, would work properly.

Vote Nader, if you like. We all have the freedom to vote for the candidate we believe in the most. I'd love to hear what great things Nader is promising this election.

[gulopartisan]

Obama's position on Iraq always included the caveat that he would listen to the experts. There is no flip-flop. And yes, Nader is welcome to run, as well as Rush Limbaugh and anyone else who wants to. But anyone who votes for him is increasing the chances that McC*n will win, while not in any remote hypothesis increasing the chance that Nader will.

[imagine0594]

Voting for someone doesn't increase their chance of winning? I think we have all been living with 2 parties for far too long.

[nippersdad]

Remote hypothesis?

That really isn't the point of a third party vote, is it? The point is to use the power of a third party threat to have some impact on the platform of that party most affected. This is what is at the root of the Democratic Party's Nader demonization talking point about his having lost the election for Gore in 2000. Crude, but effective on their part insofar as Nader's numbers went down the next election. However, while attempting to make him an outcast, they have pointedly failed to address his message.

Edwards (Nader's surrogate this election) was polling at seventeen percent without media coverage and is no longer in the game. Kucinich and Dodd had quite a following as well; there is a constituency for a Progressive platform that Obama risks by his rightward shift. Nader's and McKinney's numbers will come up this election as a result because we have seen how effective waiting until a politician is elected to voice ones views has worked over the past two years, have we not?

[papasalas]

So-called progresives like this Wexler are worst than republicans, serioulsly. Iraq flip-flop? Are you kidding?

[JackLivigni]

Most of the folks accusing Obama of moving to the Center never took the time to actually study what Obama's policy agenda was because they were busy supporting other candidates. They thought they knew, based on what the negative info coming their way told them of Obama, or based on their impressions at the time.

Obama is not moving to the center but has been a pretty darn centrist candidate on alot of issues from the get go, not on all, but many. Specifically, the FISA bill - he hasn't changed position, he has struck a deal to not get the bill vetoed. If the President wouldn't veto the absence of immunity he would vote for no immunity.

As to Iraq, his position hasn't changed at all.

These are the two issues he is accused of moving to the center on. This is false and manipulative rhetoric, mainly media driven.

[WWWexler]

I agree that Obama is more centrist and that people weren't paying attention.

HOWEVER, the Iraq position IS a flip flop. And it was a key policy during the nomination process... so stop trying to rationalize it.

-Wexler

[murphysgirl]

No his stance on troop withdrawl wasn't a flip flop!!! He's been talking about consulting generals on the ground and meeting with the Joint Chief of Staff since last year!! You just haven't been paying attention until now!!!

[gulopartisan]

If you review the facts rather than your wishful thinking, you will find that Obama's position has not changed. What has changed is that the media is shifting the emphasis. They couldn't beat him by making him an anti-war Leftist, so now they are playing the flip-flop card. And with people like you, it's working. Here, salivate when I ring this bell.

[WorkingClass]

Seems to me that the right is welcome with open arms in the Democrats big tent. But the left is scolded and whipped and threatened. Obama will win big in my opinion and with long coat tails. If it looks like he has a shot in Louisiana I will vote for him myself. But I am not a Democrat and never will be.

If the winning Democrats fail to restore the constitution and the bill of rights. If they fail to reign in the imperial military adventures. If they fail to shut down K Street and return the government to the people. If they fail to end the terrible class war waged against American workers since Ronald Regan. Then they will find themselves under constant and withering attack from the left. Get used to it.

[wayoutleft]

ah... the clouds part... the democrats use the left to fund and volunteer. then they move right. their difficult trick is to get the left to keep funding and volunteering while they make their center-right move. this is why criticism from the left is like sunlight to vampires. i've been spoiled by a string of at least plausible democrats like gerry brown, willie brown, tom hayden, barbara boxer, waxman and others. respects Working Class. you're in a tougher spot. .
in a more obama-centric sense, once the left has been swept away in the electoral landslide. then the real nut-cutting begins. what people will do to each other within the obama camp will make their purge of the left look like school games.

[wayoutleft]

i would have guessed georgetown in the '70's- certainly not pennsyvania avenue in 1969:
"One month after the 'Moratorium', on 15 November, 1969, the 'Mobilization' peace demonstration in Washington DC had a crowd estimated at from 250,000 to 500,000. This event remains the largest single anti-war protest in US history...Those in attendance included three United States Senators, Eugene McCarthy, George S McGovern, and Charles E Goodell, a Republican. Also present were Correta Scott King, comedian/activist Dick Gregory... BBC
the well-known fact that clean gene mccarthy was a culturally conservative catholic professor was precisely what gave his opposition to johnson and the war such salience. i mean if the modern democrats are pro-war- just say so. no need to slag gene mccarthy. that he was a conservative on most matters is exactly what made his anti-war activism stand out.

[WorkingClass]

Thanks for defending Gene McCarthy. I was just out of the army at the time you are referencing and didn't much care about politics. I was busy partying with the hippies. But I knew what was going down and I remember it the way you are telling it.

[WorkingClass]

Thanks for defending Gene McCarthy. I was just out of the army at the time you are referencing and didn't much care about politics. I was busy partying with the hippies. But I knew what was going down and I remember it the way you are telling it.

[wayoutleft]

it warrants repeating Working Class. definitely a point to make twice. :>)

[tkondaks]

But, Sam, Obama didn't even has the decency to wait until AFTER the convention before he started to move to the center (uh, according to some, the center-RIGHT).
That's why a movement has started to pressure pledged Obama delegates to switch their votes at the convention:
http://www.PledgedNotBound.com
Enough is enough. Don't tell me one thing to get my vote and then, once procured, tell me something else.

[JimR]

He didn't "move to the center." He didn't move at all. If you had read his blueprint for change, and if you had read his books, you would know that he doing exactly what he said he would do.

[WWWexler]

He flip flopped on Iraq.

Period. Read his quotes on Iraq... that's how he got the liberals to give him the nomination.

-Wexler

[nomobull]

except if you do a little research you find out this is not true . so stop repeating the media and mccain spin .

[Pquilson]

tkondaks wrote: "Don't tell me one thing to get my vote and then, once procured, tell me something else."
Do you not understand? That is what politicians do. Even worse, they tell you one thing to get your vote, then, once procured, DO something else.
Yes, Mr. Obama is a politician who gives great speeches. What he will say or do after being elected is a horse of a different color.
I was told by a very wise person to "Listen to the music, but watch the dance."
I was also told "Every woman is different, every wife is the same."
Both parallel the words and actions of politicians. They will tell you what you want to hear, but do what they please afterward, when you have no power and they have it all.

[ramara]

It's easier to report non-stories than to actually find out the facts. It's a game of let's you and he fight.

Obama is not perfect, but he will get all or most of the troops out of Iraq, conduct active diplomacy, get a health care reform bill passed, get the regulatory agencies working, shut down Guantanomo, and appoint decent judges and Justices. If this is not enough for you, or if you think McCain would do the same things, I have a bridge you might be interested in buying.

He will stop the my way or the highway brand of politics that keeps things from working, and that means that there will be compromises. Frankly, I would find a government that works refreshing.

[gulopartisan]

"He will stop the my way or the highway brand of politics" --
Which irriates both the fundy Left and the fundy Right. Witness this thread. As George Lakoff insists, the election is about character, not policy. And it should be. I trust Obama -- not to agree with me but to do the best he can.

[NTO08]

What world are you living in? What makes you think Obama will do anything that you so confidently claim he will do? What assurance have you gotten that these claims you make will come true? Are you clairvoyant? To think any politician is going to do exactly what he has told you is to be incredibly naive. Already Obama has shown he WON'T be following the left's agenda, and yet his minions still don't get it...

[JimR]

I believe that's the Anti-Obama Talking Point number 237.

Got anything original?