Posted on 10/07/2008 2:31:44 PM PDT by jazusamo
Barack Obama's supporters often try to sidestep questions about his character and judgment by saying that we should stick to what they arbitrarily define as "the real issues." But Senator Obama's record on specific issues is as bad as his record of repeatedly allying himself over the years with people who make no attempt to hide their hatred of America.
Among the so-called "real issues" are earmarks for Senators' pet projects, like the "bridge to nowhere." These are among the most indefensible parts of the inbred Washington political culture, which Obama has so often claimed to be against, as part of his promise of "change" to "clean up the mess in Washington."
Yet Senator Obama not only voted in favor of the bridge to nowhere, he voted against anti-earmark amendments proposed by Senator John McCain.
Obama has had more than two dozen of his own earmarks in the past fiscal year, and he knows the Senate well enough to know that, if he voted against the bridge to nowhere, his own earmarks might get nowhere.
Those earmarks, incidentally, included a million dollars of the taxpayers' money for a facility where his wife works at the University of Chicago. Her salary rose by nearly $200,000 when her husband became a United States Senator— no doubt a shrewd investment by the university that paid off.
When a highly publicized bridge collapse in Minnesota in 2007 led Senator Tom Coburn to propose taking money from federal spending on bicycle paths and use it for maintaining and repairing bridges instead, Senator Obama voted against it. The kind of people who vote for him want bike paths.
Moreover, the very idea of taking money from one thing to use for something with a higher priority— something that we all have to do in our own personal lives— is foreign to the liberal big spenders in Washington.
When they want more money for some purpose, they simply raise the tax rates. They don't cut spending somewhere else.
The idea that Barack Obama is somehow different from other liberal-left politicians can only be based on his rhetoric, because his actual track record shows him to differ only in being further left than most liberals and at least as opportunistic.
His talk, however, is another story. The speech that Obama gave at the 2004 Democratic convention— the speech that put him on the national map politically— was one which has been aptly described as a speech that would have been almost equally at home if it had been delivered at the Republican national convention.
In the world of rhetoric— the world in which Obama is supreme— he is a moderate, reasonable man, reaching out to unite people and parties, dedicated to reform, opposed to special interests and a healer of the racial divide.
It is only in the real world of action that Barack Obama is the direct opposite. He has pushed for federal subsidies for ethanol, for example, as other midwestern Senators have, since a lot of corn is grown in the midwest to be turned into ethanol.
He is 100 percent behind the teachers' unions in their fight to preserve their grip on the public schools and exempt their members from being judged by performance instead of seniority— which is to say, he is throwing the students, and especially minority students— to the wolves.
Senator Obama would never call voting for ethanol subsidies a vote for "special interests," any more than he called his total support of the teachers unions a matter of special interests, even though teachers unions are the biggest obstacle to changing the status quo in public schools that have failed American children in general and minority children in particular.
Barack Obama's track record on so-called "real issues" is no better than his track record on issues of character and judgment. The media's track record of conveying the facts to the public is a travesty of their claims about "the public's right to know."
If John McCain had made half as many gaffes as Barack Obama— "all 57 states," for example— they would be picturing him as senile. Meanwhile, the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran supplying its terrorist surrogates with nukes does not interest the media nearly as much as scoring "gotchas" against Sarah Palin.
The Real Obama: Part III
The Real Obama: Part II
The Real Obama
Do Facts Matter?
Idols of Crowds
Changes in Politics
Whose “Special Interests”?
The Galbraith Effect
…As Well As Several Other Issues
Are Facts Obsolete?
Conservatives for Obama?
Cocky Ignorance
Obama and McCain
Irrelevant Apologies
Success Built on Work Ethic
An Old Newness
A Living Lie
Obama’s Speech
Race and Politics
Non-Judgmental Nonsense
Obama is a chameleon.
Thanks for the Ping I already had linked there from your earlier post and found all four.
Obama is a communist/socialist/Democrat - same difference. The most stupid thing about this mass hypnosis and this man is that he mouths the words - hope, change - and has never specified exactly WHAT the hope and change are going to be. I think those words are buzz words for everyone which mean just whatever the person hearing them WANT them to mean. To the career welfare recipients, the words mean raises in the freebies and additional freebies so neither they nor their children will ever have to work - with everything free - guaranteed. To the elitist Hollywood types, it means “fairness” and their fans always having money to attend their mega-hit movies and put millions in their bank accounts to keep them in the limelight longer than the usual fifteen minutes of fame. To the environmental wacko, the words mean endless government regulations that completely stifle business under the guise of the unproven theory of “manmade global warming”. To the Union bosses, the words mean salaries fixed so high that any sensible company is going to take their factories and companies to countries other than the United States. If Obama is elected, welcome to the United Socialist States of America, until the ordinary Joe Six Pack finally figures it out at any rate.
Obama not only voted in favor of the bridge to nowhere, but he would send the country into a depression.
Thank you for posting.
Thanks for the Ping jaz. Read all four now. Wondering if there will be more. I agree with what Dr. Sowell has to say, and look forward to reading his works.
Seems Dr. Sowell is writing more since we’re getting closer to the election. Four in a week is a bunch, hope he keeps doing it til Nov 4.
I meant my post #9 for you RQSR. :)
Call me a racist but I’d vote for Thomas Sowell for anything at anytime.
Other than trolls I’d bet there isn’t a person here at FR that wouldn’t vote for him. :-)
I hope he makes this a continuing series either up until the election or at least for quite a few more articles. Sowell definitely understands that time is running out and that it’s time to fire all guns until the enemy is destroyed, ammo runs out, or the battle is lost. Hopefully McCain will also understand this. And of course, the second possibility is impossible. I’ll be looking forward to The Real Obama: Part XXIV.
I’m with you, couldn’t agree more.
I think you just insulted chameleons. Tsk!
“...mouths the words - hope, change -...”
I have heard a number of his spokesmen say there needs to be a “fundamental change” in the American economy.
I HOPE I’m wrong, but the CHANGE seems to be to socialism.
another great thread!
My only regret in voting for Prof. Sowell would be that, not living in Chicago, I could not vote for him twice.
Not zacktly true. In da olden daze theys hadda pick cotton, now theys jest pull a little lever every couple o years.
Plantation work for the massa has never been easier.
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