Hanging Tough with Obama When Obama is Not Hanging Tough ( BUZZFLASH)

[kpete]

Hanging Tough with Obama When Obama is Not Hanging Tough
Submitted by mark karlin on Mon, 07/07/2008 - 6:01am. EditorBlog
THE BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

Mark Karlin

Editor and Publisher

July 7, 2008

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There's been a lot of Internet speculation about why Obama made these counter-progressive comments. Is he following the advice of his strategists because he needs to ease the concerns of key voting blocks in new states that they plan to possibly pick up (e.g., Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, Georgia, Virginia, etc.)? In that case, Obama loses some of his luster as being the "genuine" candidate. Or are these nuances that Obama actually believes? Or are they a lot of "dog days of summer" attention focused on issues that will pass once he becomes president and appoints Supreme Court justices who will lean progressive, along with having a heavily Democratic Congress, including the Senate?

The answer: probably a little of all of the above.

Being in Chicago, as we have said, we have worked with Obama in the past on some advocacy issues, such as putting an end to Payday Loans (although we have absolutely no connection with his campaign; we're talking about when he was a state senator). We also know a lot of people who know him from Hyde Park -- both socially and politically -- and elected officials who worked with him in the legislature.

Most of them will tell you this: if he has a core center upon which he will not compromise, it is related to Constitutional issues. We wager that he and his campaign know that Harry Reid doesn't have the votes to maintain a filibuster on the House FISA bill, so Obama is taking the chance to innoculate himself from the only thing the Republicans got to run against him; i.e., that he is a furtive Muslim sympathizer. As BuzzFlash has speculated before, we think that too many Democrats were given classified briefings about the FISA illegalities and would be implicated if Bush and Cheney were held to account. As for Telecom Immunity, show us the money. When you have the Democratic head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, cheerleading for Telecom Immunity, you know that the fix is in.

Do we justify such "business as usual" political moves? No, but we are going to hold our judgment on Obama, barring some radical departure from his primary positions, until he is elected. This guy is committed to the Constitution and BuzzFlash and the rest of the netroots are going to be all over him like a panther on the prowl if he doesn't roll back the Bush usurpations of the Constitution and our civil liberties. The same goes for abortion.

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THE BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

more at:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorblog/101

[Ian David]

1. I knew there was a reason I had you on my ignore list for so long.

Before I decide whether to put you on ignore again, just one question please:

Do you have ANYTHING positive to say about our party's nominee?

[kpete]

2. lots of good things to say about Obama...

and I will vote from him, but I will NOT give him a pass to FUCK with our constitution.

You misunderstand my concerns - I support Obama, but NOT unconditionally.

peace, kp

[Fleshdancer]

3. The editorial was pro-Obama

Granted, the headline stinks, but it brought up a few interesting points regarding FISA that I didn't know before and explains Obama's approach to this whole thing.

[Ian David]

6. I will re-read it again. n/t

[democrattotheend]

5. I think this article is actually somewhat sympathetic to Obama

It makes the case that I've been making, that Obama would not cave on FISA if he thought they had the votes to stop it.

[Captain Hilts]

4. People who think he's a Muslim aren't going to vote for him anyway. Ignore crazy fringe groups!

[Ian David]

9. he reich-wing will say, "Mohamed Hussein Obama wants to spy on Christians!" n/t

[Ian David]

7. I just re-read the piece. My apologies, please. This is pretty much favorable. n/t

[Political Heretic]

8. Here's where I stopped reading:

"There's been a lot of Internet speculation about why Obama made these counter-progressive comments."

Could it be because Obama has never been a progressive - if "Progressive" is to be defined as "hard left" politics. I'm sorry that hard-left purists decided to project this idea onto the candidate, totally ignoring all his statements and position articulations to the contrary, but its silly for you to be shocked now.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

10. Hate her or love her, I listen to Randi Rhodes daily and Jonathan Turley

is often on her show discussing the FISA bill and why the Dems caved. He has been suggesting this very point: many in the Democratic leadership, including Pelosi, Reid, and Rockefeller, especially, are complicit with the administration. Not only were they briefed on the illegal activities of the administration, they also knew about other unconstitutional and illegal activities, such as the authorization of torture. Turley has also surmised that many of the most ardent Democratic supporters of the immunity deal were receiving campaign contributions from most of the telecoms. I believe that the only one of these companies that did not participate in illegal spying was Qwest Communications. I think they are located in Denver.

I believe Obama's hands on tied on this issue. What does he do? If he voted for FISA, it restores the court and the RW will attack him on that. If he votes for immunity, he'll receive attacks from the left. So you see, no matter what he does, he's going to be attacked by some group or another.

I would argue in agreement with Olberman, that no matter what he does, the Wingnuts will attack him for being soft on crime. So why not do the right thing? The Repukes, with the complicity of the M$M will attack him regardless, anyway!! :shrug:

[Peace Patriot]

11. I agree with this to an extent. But everybody, including this OP writer, writes about

this campaign (and all U.S. campaigns) as if our vote counting system had NOT been taken over by private corporations, with ties to rightwing causes that would make your hair stand on end, who are now 'counting' all our votes with machines run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls--a fascist coup that took place during the 2002 to 2004 period, with a $3.9 billion electronic voting boondoggle from the Anthrax Congress.

Ergo, it is not the American people that Obama has to please, at this point. It's the far rightwing voting machine corporations, who have the EASY, UNDETECTABLE capability of flipping any election they damn please, and there is nothing we can do about it. Bear in mind that the key to Obama's win of the nomination was the caucuses, which are NOT COUNTED BY Diebold & brethren. I suspect that they will refrain from flipping the Obama landslide--for fear of losing their voting machines to public outrage--and will instead shave his mandate and inflict him with a difficult, "Blue Dog" Congress (like the present one), and wait it out, until 2012. Their corporate buds can also make things awful for an Obama administration in the meantime (say, as the oil corps did to Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s), and set things up for a return of the Bushites in 2012.

And behind the voting machine corporations are the war profiteers and other global corporate predators, reclusive rightwing multi-billionaires who believe in putting homosexuals to death (I am not kidding), Chinese and Saudi financiers, Wall Street, Wal-Mart and builders of walls against Mexico (and the leftist tide that is sweeping Latin America), and all manner of bad guys. These are the interests that Obama must pander to and allay, because there are no caucuses in November. It is an all-Diebold & brethren selection. He has to hang on to us--to his people support--and convince them that he is no FDR or other kind of real reformer, as they make their decision whether to swipe the election from him or not. It is difficult in this situation--and given the fascist/corporate 'news' monopolies--to know what kind of reformer Obama really is, or will become. But it is a distortion of reality to portray this struggle as a struggle to win rightwing or centrist voters. Centrist voters these days are to the left of the national political establishment. SEVENTY PERCENT of the American people feel that the country is going in the wrong direction. SEVENTY PERCENT of them oppose the Iraq War and want it ended. In a survey published last year, EIGHTY PERCENT opposed any widening of the Mideast war. They don't need convincing that a change in leadership in Washington DC is essential to the survival of our nation, our democracy and the very planet we live on. In honest and fair election conditions, Obama would win by the biggest landslide in history. But we don't have such conditions. We have the opposite--the most non-transparent, riggable vote counting system imaginable.

That is the reason for Obama's swing to the right. It's not to gain votes from the 20% to 30% fascist minority that still supports Bush. It's to please our corporate overlords who can kill his candidacy with one line of programming code.

[TexasObserver]

12. Obama, having secured the Democratic nomination, focused on the center.

There's a political continuum in America, and every one of us sits somewhere left of center on it.

It is a fact that we cannot win 51% of the vote if we get no votes to the right of US. Obama knows this, and since he's running for president, not Democratic party chairman, he can't get there by pleasing the left on every issue.