Name one accomplishment by Obama
By SusanUnPC on February 5, 2008 at 11:11 AM in Barack Obama, Iraq
Yes, I know it’s Fox. But those are all Obama supporters that Luntz is polling. And it is a problem with a good many of his supporters. Most become enraptured by his oratory, and don’t do a critical analysis and comparison of the candidates.
Even giving a speech against a war in 2002 is not a real accomplishment, especially when you do it in a liberal urban district of Chicago, and your own neck isn’t on the chopping block if you take the wrong vote. (Then, since you’ve joined the U.S. Senate, you’ve gone along with everybody else, and even refused to assist with Senate efforts to end the war. Your voting record is identical to Sen. Clinton’s except that she had the guts to vote against the confirmation of Gen. George Casey to be Chief of Staff for the Army because, Sen. Clinton discovered, he wasn’t taking care of the troops. But that didn’t bother you.) Then there was that appearance on Meet The Press:
In July of `04, Barack Obama, “I’m not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don’t know,” in terms of how you would have voted on the war. And then this: “There’s not much of a difference between my position on Iraq and George Bush’s position at this stage.” That was July of `04. And this: “I think” there’s “some room for disagreement in that initial decision to vote for authorization of the war.” It doesn’t seem that you are firmly wedded against the war, and that you left some wiggle room that, if you had been in the Senate, you may have voted for it. (”Meet the Press,” 2004, via MyDD, Nov. 11, 2007)
Then there was this brilliant analysis in “Obama Wasn’t Right About Iraq — AGAIN” by ThinkingDem at MyDD.com: “I am NOT saying that Obama did not oppose the war. He did. I grant him that. What I am saying is that on the 3 fundamental bases as stated in his speech on October of 2002, his judgment was NOT RIGHT.” Briefly:
(1) “He does not dispute the intelligence that everybody else believed. He does not dispute the causus belli for war. Barack Obama was just as wrong as everybody else.” (See ThinkingDem’s reasoning.)
(2) “Barack Obama was NOT RIGHT about the threat posed by Iraq.” (See ThinkingDem’s reasoning.)
(3) About Obama’s contentions about why we shouldn’t go to war:
[Quoting Obama] “I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.”
[ThinkingDem then says] First of all — it still bugs me to no end that Democrats don’t recognize that by framing victory in the language of defeat BEFORE THE WAR BEGAN, Obama was setting himself up to run for Commander in Chief on the pre-ordained failure of the very troops he wants to command. How you people out there don’t see the truly disgusting, shameful, cynical long term political calculation in that phrase makes me fear for the future of the Party.
But let’s put that aside for a moment. Obama agrees that Iraq is a threat. He was wrong about our ability to contain that threat. But even if you put THAT aside, Obama is saying that America should not neutralize threats to our national security if it’s going to take a while, cost a lot and involve a lot of risk. A President Obama would have responded to Pearl Harbor by saying “Screw it, let the Japanese have their fun”. After all, four years of combat? Billions spent? Lots of Dead Americans? Hell, Obama would have responded to 9/11 by doing…nothing. Afghanistan was no threat to us, and of course, 6 years later, we’re still there, for an undetermined future, at an undetermined cost, at an undetermined risk…
Now. I opposed the war in Iraq right up until the moment we crossed the border. Not being a selfish, mindless idiot, I recognized that once we crossed the border, we weren’t leaving until that country could function on its own. …
Read all: “Obama Wasn’t Right About Iraq — AGAIN.”
(
)
Pingback: Can They List His Qualifications? (Part Deux) : NO QUARTER