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Where was Obama?

By Artificial Intelligence on January 11, 2008 at 7:10 PM in Uncategorized

(I am a citizen journalist at SourceWatch (Disinfopedia)/Congresspedia.)

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has made much on the presidential campaign trail of his opposition to the war in Iraq, particularly his October 26, 2002, speech in which he said he did not oppose all wars but what he did oppose is a “dumb war”.

Yesterday, Andrew Stephen wrote in the NewStatesman:

In his three years in the Senate he has kept his head safely below the parapet, leaving two congressional colleagues – Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania – to spearhead opposition to the war on Capitol Hill. In 2006 he voted against a Senate resolution calling for the withdrawal of troops and has also voted to continue funding the war.

What jumped out at me here was the reference to Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.). On November 17, 2005, Murtha made a statement to the press in which he called for the immediate redeployment of U.S. troops in Iraq and to bring the troops home.

Here was the perfect time for Sen. Obama to jump on board. He did not.

Almost immediately, swiftboating attacks were launched against Murtha by several of the same individuals involved in the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Again, this was the perfect time for Sen. Obama to jump on board, particularly since it was Sen. Kerry who had given him the opportunity to speak at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, a speech by the way which helped launch his own presidential campaign.

Also yesterday, in South Carolina, Sen. Kerry endorsed Sen. Obama’s presidential bid. How ironic is it that the man who failed to come to Rep. Murtha’s defense in 2005 for speaking out against the war and to bring the troops home or to Sen. Kerry’s defense in 2004 while he was being swiftboated for his military service managed to receive the latter’s endorsement?

Shame on Sen. Kerry and shame, shame, shame on Sen. Obama.

http://OUTRAGEDBUTNOTSURPRISED bama_barrron

i’m having a senior moment here … but wasnt there some sort of dust up between obama and murtha early on?

damn i cant recall the details.
http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

Don’t know, bama. Hopefully someone here will know.

The thing is that Obama made that little speech in the very safe environs of liberal Chicago territory, and that was it. He backtracked in 2004, saying he wasn’t sure how he would have voted had he been in the U.S. Senate, and more. Bill Clinton is — for reasons utterly mysterious to me — taking flak for saying Obama’s supposedly courageous stand on Iraq is a fairy tale. It is! He made one little speech, didn’t defend national figures taking incredible heat for their early stands against the war, and then in 2004 backtracked. In the U.S. Senate in 2005 only, he has voted every single time for Iraq War financing.
http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

I’m reading the quoted article. The magazine had been very impressed with Obama; the editors “devoted a cover to his face, anointing him as one of ten people likely to have an impact on the world.”

One snippet:

In those memoirs, Dreams from My Father, he burnished a personal and political résumé that, in places, seemed almost unbelievable – so I was not surprised to read in his introduction to the reissued edition of “selective lapses of memory” and “the temptation to colour events in ways favourable to the writer”.

I’ll provide two brief examples of how Obama did just that. He wrote movingly of a turning point in his life when, as a nine-year-old, he read in Life magazine of a “black man who had tried to peel off his skin”. But the Chicago Tribune – it and the Chicago Sun-Times being honourable exceptions to the media quiescence I have described – reported that “no such Life issue exists”, and an exhaustive search of similar magazines failed to find any article remotely similar to the one Obama had described. The Obama media machine, too, obligingly enabled television crews this month to interview Obama’s very elderly Kenyan “grandmother”; the only problem was that the woman in rural Kenya was not Obama’s grandmother, but the alleged foster mother of Obama’s father. …

I’d read the first example at the ChiTrib’s lengthy bio of Obama. But I didn’t know that that wasn’t his actual grandmother. Wow.
http://OUTRAGEDBUTNOTSURPRISED bama_barrron

well when in doubt … reach out and do some research as they say. the following:http://davidsirota.com/index.php/mr-obama-goes-to-washington/ is an excellent read … sirota is one of those progressive policy wonkswho knows his shit frontwards and backwards. sorta like larry with intelligence/security issues.

I highly recommend this read inasmuch as it is a honest asessment of the questions surrounding obama from a progressive viewpoint.
Cee

Strange Bedfellows: The Clintons, Karl Rove, and Erica Jong (Erica Jong??)

Posted January 11, 2008 | 08:29 PM (EST)

The past week has been a play in three acts. First the Clintons went after Obama with some old-fashioned Swiftboating, together with what some observers considered subtle race-baiting. Then Karl Rove turned their lie into a “Republican talking point,” garnishing it with a more nakedly racist pitch. Lastly, author Erica Jong issued a Rovian condemnation of Hillary’s critics as sexist (all of them, apparently) and topped it off with a little white-liberal bigotry. I want a woman President, too – but not this way.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/strange-bedfellows-the-_b_81184.html
TeakWoodKite

Fear of Flying? Erica Jong…/\?
http://www.sourcewatch.org Artificial Intelligence

Glen Ford and Peter Gamble wrote in the December 1, 2005, The Black Commentator

“U.S. Senator Barack Obama has planted his feet deeply inside the Iraq war-prolongation camp of the Democratic Party, the great swamp that, if not drained, will swallow up any hope of victory over the GOP in next year’s congressional elections. In a masterpiece of double-speak before the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, November 22, the Black Illinois lawmaker managed to out-mush-mouth Sen. John Kerry – a prodigious feat, indeed.

“Obama’s speech had the Democratic Leadership Council’s (DLC) brand stamped all over it. Triangulating expertly, Obama first praised the war record of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), who has called for immediate steps towards U.S. military redeployment out of Iraq, hopefully in six months, then dismissed both Murtha’s bill and any hint of ‘timetables’ for withdrawal.“
http://www.sourcewatch.org Artificial Intelligence

After rebuffing Murtha’s legislation calling for a timetable in December 2005, on a two-day trip to Iraq January 6-7, 2006, Obama “met with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani” “to ask U.S. commanders for a realistic time frame on bringing troops home.”

“Obama, who last year called for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq, said he is ‘constantly impressed and proud of the outstanding work’ of American troops, but that he still questions the overall U.S. policy in Iraq.

“‘In my mind, at least, there’s a difference between the discrete successes on the ground and whether the overarching policy will ultimately be successful,’ he said. ‘The fundamental policies that led to us being here were flawed and not well thought through, and the odds of our long-term success is hard to assess at this point.’”

This is a typical example of Obama looking out for Obama’s political plans. If you watch a video or read the transcript from the January 5, 2008, debate in NH, you will find him constantly repackaging answers by Edwards and Clinton and presenting them as his own. My adult sons picked up on his habit of mimicry, which is probably a technique he learned long ago.

MSNBC’s Tom Curry reported November 3, 2005, on an earlier “trip to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan” Obama made with Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana “to inspect weapons dumps and sites where nerve gas, as well as smallpox, plague and other deadly pathogens are kept, under not very secure guard in some cases.”

In an attempt to build HIS foreign policy credentials and prove what a foreign policy wonk HE is, Obama wraps Russia up in the same neat little fake WMD package with Iraq:

“‘The demand for these weapons has never been greater,’ Obama warned. ‘Right now rogue states and despotic regimes are looking to begin or accelerate their own nuclear programs.’

“It sounded like the rationale the Bush administration offered in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, but Obama stood apart this week from the Senate fracas over investigating 2002-2003 pre-war intelligence.

“He seems more concerned about the present.

“‘As we speak, members of al Qaida and other terrorist organizations are aggressively pursuing weapons of mass destruction, which I think all of us believe they would use without hesitation,’ he said.

“‘Some experts believe terrorists are likely to find enough fissile material to build a bomb in the next ten years and we can imagine with horror what the world would be like if they succeeded.’”

“Obama called nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons within the borders of the former Soviet Union ‘the greatest threat to the security of the United States.’”

Which Obama exactly are we seeing here? The one who is basing his whole campaign on his one-speech “opposition” to the war in Iraq? Or the Obama who in November 2005 is George-Bushesque looking under the chairs in Russia for WMD?

One question that upcoming debate hosts should ask Obama is what HE plans to do about those Russian WMDs.
Independent

I love watching the Democraps use the same smear tools against their own that they have hated in the Repubicans. Be careful, one of these folks may be your next VP. I am looking forward to the instant change to “love” when that time comes.
I think Obama came out against the invasion/occupation of Iraq Before it happened. That is the telling point.

PS: I am not an Obama supporter either. Democraps are just Repubican light. No need for you to get the big head about Your team unless you are a first time voter and haven’t noticed the results election after election. You are only important until Nov.8th.

More money for Iraq, anyone?
Cee

I love watching the Democraps use the same smear tools against their own that they have hated in the Repubicans. Be careful,

Good point. I’ve been trying to make it.
http://www.sourcewatch.org Artificial Intelligence

UPDATE: There is a very strange relationship between Sens. Kerry and Obama. Blogger Shlomah Shamos reported January 4, 2008, that “When [Obama] launched his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in late 2006, he named as his fund-raising chief Alan Solomont, the Boston Jewish philanthropist who helped shepherd Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to the Democratic candidacy in 2004.” Solomont, a registered lobbyist, is listed as a bundler by the Obama campaign.
cletus holloway

What got my attention was in Obama’s Book> Dreams from my Father,he said something that was shocking.>If times got to much for him,he would simply revert to the Muslim ways! Wake up America,once a Muslim always a muslim! No vote from here for him!Read the book and then make up your mind,you owe your country that much!
StrawberrybitesBarky

And you did hear that Donna Brazilla and Rove are good friends right?
http://www.marxeting.com.ar matias

Do Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Think Different?
JabberWacky: A reactionary is a man whose political opinions always manage to keep up with yesterday.

Ultra Hal: I suspect you know some fascinating things about the military.

- Sen. John McCain said “we don’t have the time for on-the-job training” referring to his opponent on foreign policy.

JabberWacky: I agree with you. John McCain would be a very bad president of the United States.

Ultra Hal: I am a product of my database. You mean you don’t have time?

See the Interview with A.I. Chatbots JabberWacky and Ultra Hal About The Second Presidential Debate Here
(http://www.marxeting.com.ar/?page_id=180)
http://www.marxeting.com.ar matias

Do Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Think Different?