Senator Obama’s Inconsistent Policy on ___

Originally published today at MyDD.com.

=========

During this most recent scandal concerning NAFTA, Senator Obama’s spokesperson uttered something I found rather amusing. His spokesperson, in defending Senator Obama against what is now widely being seen as waffling if not outright lying to the American people stated:

There was no one at any level of our campaign, at any point, anywhere, who said or otherwise implied Obama was backing away from his consistent position on trade.

Boy is that a mouthful. It sounds like legalese rather than something an ordinary American would understand. But it’s that last part that gave me a chuckle because, well, Senator Obama has been FAR from consistent on trade policy or hardly any policy at all. In fact he makes stuff up that sounds really good to his adoring fans, he even puts out commercials touting his strong support for workers in need. But when one examines his “consistent” record there is indeed a consistency there, but it is the type of consistency that is inconsistent and is more than a little troubling. In fact you might say that his rhetoric and his actions are two entirely different things as this recent NAFTAgate scandal is making very clear. the guy talks a good game, but when it comes to actually taking action he is
missing in action.

Let’s examine this shall we?

The first example the American people experienced of Senator Obama’s post-partisan working across the aisle approach was on July, 29 2005. On that fateful day Senator Obama voted YEA to the Dick Cheney behind closed doors Energy Policy Act of 2005. The same so-called Energy Policy that offered HUGE giveaways to the oil companies and special interests. I’m sure you have heard Senator Obama on the stump claiming:

Washington’s failure is the failure of a president who spent most of his time in office denying the very existence of global warming – of a Vice President who developed America’s energy policy with a secret task force that opened the door to oil lobbyists and
then shut it to every other point of view.

What you don’t hear him say is that he VOTED for this bill that he now works up the crowd claiming to be opposing. Is that funny or what?

In fact Mike Ewall of the Energy Justice Network states:

http://www.energyjustice.net/energybill/epact2005.html

A sound energy policy would focus on conservation, efficiency and CLEAN renewables (like wind and solar — no “biomass” incinerators) and that we need a clean fuels policy that reduces our oil consumption and moves us towards CLEAN hydrogen fuel cells (using hydrogen separated from water with wind and solar electricity).

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 does just the opposite. It’s without question the most environmentally-damaging national legislation ever to be passed in the U.S. It’s a gigantic subsidy bill, providing support to almost every conceivable dirty energy technology, including nuclear power, fossil fuels, and polluting “alternative” fuels.

With an expert like Mike Ewall saying something like this it is hard to imagine why Senator Obama voted for this terrible bill. You know, the bill Dick Cheney negotiated. I guess this is how Obama demonstrates his ability to reach across the aisle and work with republicans. Hmmm…. doesn’t sound like any type of bipartisanship that is good for the American people. But is surely is very good news to BIG OIL and all their lobbyists. You know, those same folks Senator Obama likes to remind us that he is so dead set against.

And just to put this into perspective, this is what the Energy Bill that senator Obama VOTED for but now acts like he is against actually does. Again from Mike Ewall:

The energy bill will…

   * increase gasoline prices (according to Bush’s own Department of Energy)
    * do nothing to reduce our reliance on oil imports
    * do nothing to increase auto fuel efficiency
    * do nothing to transition our electricity sector towards clean renewable energy
    * inventory the U.S. coastlines for oil and gas, to make way for future drilling in our coastal waters
    * trample state’s rights to protect their coasts from liquefied natural gas terminals (used so we can go to war  
     for gas as well as oil, now that we’re running out of natural gas in North America)
    * require ethanol use, increasing gas prices [mention this if you're in a Western or New England state, where  
   ethanol would need to be imported from the mid-west]
    * make us more vulnerable to terrorism by building more juicy terrorist targets (new nuclear reactors and a new  
     gas pipeline from Alaska)
    * throw many billions of tax dollars into the expensive and polluting nuclear power industry
    * promote nuclear proliferation by reversing long-standing U.S. policy against reprocessing waste from
commercial nuclear reactors, and using plutonium to generate commercial energy
    * promote building more coal power plants
    * provide incentives to cut down our national forests for energy production

Had enough? Do you get it yet? How about another fine example of Barack Obama’s “leadership”? And I use the term loosely on energy.

Back in May of 2007 Senator Obama went to Detroit to deliver what was billed as a

stern message to Detroit auto companies on Monday, saying they had done little to lessen the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and needed to improve the fuel efficiency of their vehicles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/us/politics/08obama.html?ref=politics

Not a single CEO of the automotive manufacturers was in attendance. And Senator Obama for all this talk of “his plan” was merely stating what was already the Democratic plan in the House and the Senate. He didn’t write the plan. He is not a member of the Committee that wrote the legislation. To his credit he voted for the legislation. But he knew well in advance what was being proposed and then essentially went to Detroit and took credit for something he only voted for after the fact.

Does this sound familiar? Senator Obama claiming to have done something he hasn’t? It should. Didn’t Senator Obama claim to have passed a nuclear energy bill that he not only never did but that was actually a huge pass to the nuclear energy sector? And isn’t it funny that the same folks he was “regulating” just happened to donate large sums of money to his campaign? And the bill he claimed to pass and didn’t followed the Bush style manner of environmental regulation. The nuclear energy was allowed to Voluntarily report nuclear discharges into the neighborhoods where people live and children play. Yep, that some bill ya passed there Senator Obama. More of that working across the aisle stuff I see.

But what of trade you might ask? Isn’t Obama consistent just like his campaign spokesperson says? Surely he is on our side like he says. Well, as it turns out Senator Obama’s promises are not worth a dime. But they do sound good. Ya got to give him that.

Senator Obama’s first foray into trade occurred way back in 2005 when he was a new Senator anxious to make his mark and show the people of the United States just what he was made of. I mean, pretty speeches only go far far, right? Unfortunately with Senator Obama that seems to be the only thing about his that you can count on.

In 2005 the Senate was debating H.R. 2862 known as: An Act making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and related agencies, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for other purposes. This was a very comprehensive bill as you might imagine with such a long title. But something much smaller was proposed by Byron Dorgan to this bill. It was Amendment 1665 designed:

To prohibit weakening any law that provides safeguards from unfair foreign trade practices.

In other words, an amendment to keep the Bush Administration from weaking labor laws that would put American workers and their jobs in jeopardy. In short, a DEMOCRATIC proposal to protect American workers. And one would expect that since Senator Obama preaches how much he cares about American workers and how opposed he has always been to NAFTA and all that that he would have been one of the supporters of this amendment. Sorry, if you thought that you will be sadly mistaken. You see, Senator Obama for all of his talk about protecting American jobs actually voted AGAINST this important Amendment.

Maybe this was a rookie mistake. Perhaps he pressed the wrong handle and voted the wrong way accidentally. No again, it’s a sad fact that Senator Obama intentionally voted against this Very important Amendment that would have protected American jobs. And though you might not know this because of all the lies the Obama campaign have stated about Hillary’s position on NAFTA, she actually voted for this Amendment when it is Senator Obama that supposedly has been against NAFTA from the start and on the side of workers and all that.

It kinda goes like this: Senator Obama says that he is on the side of workers and believes in saving American jobs but when it comes down to actually supporting American workers and protecting their jobs, Senator Obama is missing in action. Or rather, he is siding with the Republicans and bragging to the country that he works across the aisle to accomplish what is in the best interests of our country. If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny. But wait, there’s more.

You may have heard Senator Obama mention how he went to bat for the poor Maytag workers that lost not only their factory and their jobs, but apparently their representation in the Illinois Senate.

http://www.galesburg.com/news/x129592482

In recent campaign speeches, Sen. Obama has repeatedly cited the plight of Maytag workers in his bid to win sympathy and support from union members battered by factory closings and lost jobs.

“He didn’t lift a finger to help those people when they needed help the most,” said IAM President Tom Buffenbarger, whose union represented the workers at Maytag. “Even now, he doesn’t have a clue and thinks those jobs went overseas and not to Mexico.”

You get that? Obama didn’t lift a finger to help the Maytag workers that he now uses as an example of his leadership in standing up for American works.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-galesburg_obama_webfeb01,0,4286527.story

What rankles some is what Obama didn’t do even as he expressed solidarity four years ago with workers mounting a
desperate fight to save their jobs.

Obama had a special connection to Maytag: Lester Crown, one of the company’s directors and biggest investors whose family, records show, has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Obama’s campaigns since 2003. But Crown says Obama never raised the fate of the Galesburg plant with him, and the billionaire industrialist insists any jawboning would have been futile.

Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, said late Thursday that the senator did not know Crown sat on Maytag’s board until the Tribune noted it last September in a story about the closing of the Maytag headquarters in Newton, Iowa.

Now lets see, Obama is friends with Lester Crown. Lester Crown is a friend, supporter and financial contributor to Barack Obama. He and his wife have raised thousands of dollars for Barack Obama. In fact, Lester Crown’s son is the Illinois finance chairman of Obama’s presidential run. But yet David Axelrod and Barack Obama would have us believe that he didn’t even know one of his largest supporters also just happened to sit on the Board of Maytag. Sure Barack. Sure David. Whatever you say. Uh huh.

But that’s not the worst part. Obama claims that the Maytag people never asked him for assistance and that is why he didn’t help them. Hmmm…  does that seem a little strange to anyone besides me? He had expressed solidarity with the workers 4 years earlier as previously quoted but he didn’t feel the need to express his solidarity with them when their factory was being closed and their lives shattered? How can this make sense coming from the candidate declaring the “new politics of hope’? I bet those Maytag workers hope that Obama was true to his word.

The Obama campaign said the Maytag workers’ union never asked him to intervene with Crown and that he would have
done so if they had. Union officials said they were unaware of the Crowns’ ties to Maytag or to Obama.

Before John Edwards dropped out of the race this week, Obama hit him for financial ties to a hedge fund with investments in Whirlpool. The Obama critique stressed Whirlpool’s role in closing U.S. factories, including Maytag’s longtime headquarters in Newton, Iowa.

Crown family members are major Democratic Party donors. Some have given to Clinton’s campaigns for the U.S. Senate in New York. But in the presidential run, their money is behind Obama, campaign records show. The Crowns and employees of their family-run holding company have given at least $195,000 to Obama’s U.S. Senate and presidential campaigns.

Funny, the Governor of Illinois found it important enough to attempt to intervene. As did U.S. Representative Lane. But not the guy that said he was in solidarity with the workers. No, not Barack Obama.

“I have never had a conversation with State Sen. Obama or U.S. Sen. Obama regarding the Maytag Corporation,” Crown told the Tribune.

Never had a conversation. Obama claims to be in solidarity with the Maytag workers, uses them as an example of how jobs are leaving the country. And yet he never had a conversation with the one man that might have been able to do something about it.

In a statement issued late Thursday, the Obama campaign defended his record on standing up for American workers against special interests. “Because of Obama’s history of working with Democrats and Republicans to get things done, our campaign has generated the support of voters and contributors with a wide range of policy beliefs,” the statement read.

Yeah, Senator Obama sure has stood up for the American worker. A lot of people are being told that on a daily basis. You see it on the television ads. You see it all over the internet. You hear it from political commentators. And yes, you hear it out of the mouth of Barack Obama. All the time.

But behind the curtain where the rhetoric and highfalutin oratory is stripped away we are left with Senator Obama’s record. And he is not on our side.