The Obama Policy Train Wreck
By Larry Johnson on May 9, 2008 at 6:41 PM in Current Affairs
Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. Talk about a preview of the horror show that would be a Barack Obama administration. Despite running a pretty good operation in collecting delegates, Barack is a disaster at managing policy. Here’s the headline from the London Times–Barack Obama sacks adviser over talks with Hamas. Yep, another “advisor” of Barack goes under the bus. According to the Times:
One of Barack Obama’s Middle East policy advisers disclosed yesterday that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas – prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.
Robert Malley told The Times that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza and is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think-tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama’s Middle East advisory council.
Rob Malley joins an august group of Obama advisors found suddenly disposable once the public discovers that they represent out of the main stream policies. I give the Illinois Senator credit–he recognizes that these policy positions will kill his chances in the fall and is busy trying to re-invent himself. But a careful look at the train wreck of Obama advisors reveals a more fundamental problem with Barack:
We all remember Austan Goolsbee. He gave the Canadians a wink and a nod that Barack did not really mean what he said about NAFTA, but the lie was exposed subsequently when someone leaked the reporting cable from the Canadian foreign ministry.
How about Samantha Powers? Although fired from the campaign for calling Senator Clinton a “monster,” Powers let the cat out of the bag when she acknowledge that Barack does not committed to his promise to withdraw US troops from Iraq. Powers said:
“He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator.”
“You can’t make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009. . . . So to think – it would be the height of ideology to sort of say, ‘Well, I said it, therefore I’m going to impose it on whatever reality greets me.’”
And let’s not forget the intrepid John Brennan. According to Think Progress:
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has consistently spoken out and voted against granting retroactive immunity for telecoms that participated with the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. This stance was part of the reason he won the support of Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), a leader on civil liberties issues.
One of Obama’s advisers on intelligence and foreign policy advisers, however, is someone who “strongly” supports telecomm immunity. John Brennan is a former CIA official and the current chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. In a new National Journal interview, Brennan makes it clear that he agrees with the Bush administration on the issue of immunity.
Brennan is not some “Johnny come lately” adviser. He’s an experienced hand. Brennan headed the National Counter Terrorism Center in his last job in the Bush Administration. It was under John Brennan’s watch that the Bush Administration issued false statistics on the number of terrorist attacks in 2004. He tried to cook the books and keep the public in the dark that terrorist attacks had soared to unprecedented levels. So if he is taking a position directly opposite of his candidate it has to mean he’s gotten the same wink and nod that Austan Goolsbee and Samantha Powers got from Senator Obama. And now we have Mr. Malley.
Besides these “policy” wonks we have the spiritual advisors. Jeremiah Wright anyone? The most prominent of the Senator’s spiritual advisors, he was dumped a month after Senator Obama promised he would not disown him. In the end Barack disowned him.
Barack Obama would have you believe that he is shocked, shocked he tells us, to discover that these advisors are saying all of these unsavory, impolitic things. But that does not really wash. How did they become advisors in the first place? Was Barack too lazy or too stoned to ask simple questions? I don’t think so. Barack knew their positions and Barack accepted their advice because he reflected his own views. It is only in the face of the white hot glare of campaign publicity that Barack has his epiphany and decides that these positions could torpedo his campaign. So, Obama refuses to man-up and take a stand. He opts for duck-and-cover. He throws these folks from the train. The only question now, who is next?
by Ronald Scott
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