Barack Obama,Triangulator Extraordinaire: the Progressive Saint & the Clinton Double Standard

[Karmadillo]

eriposte is always worth reading, but if you're going to read one long post today, this might be the one you should choose. Nice summary of the reality of Obama versus the image.

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/011470.php

Sunday :: Dec 9, 2007
Barack Obama's War On/Of Triangulation

by eriposte

In the past months, I've been comparing the voting records and policy positions of Sen. Obama,☼ Sen. Clinton☼ and Sen. Edwards (and sometimes also Sen. Dodd☼ and Sen. Biden) in a series of posts on a variety of public policy issues that are important to corporatist interests, the Bankruptcy Bill, Bush's controversial judicial and AG nominations, campaign contributions from PACs/"special interests" (here, here and here), Iraq (here, here and here) and Iran (here, here and here). This brings me to another important topic - which I've only written about sporadically (mostly in the context of Senator John Edwards) - that I believe is now both timely and critical to talk about, particularly in the context of Sen. Obama.

You see, Sen. Obama's campaign has been very critical of Sen. Clinton for being a Triangulator.TM Here's a recent comment from his campaign (emphasis mine throughout this post, unless otherwise stated):

Barack Obama said Monday the nation has had enough of ''triangulation and poll-driven politics,'' a reference to the presidency of Bill Clinton, the husband of his chief Democratic rival. Addressing a convention center rally dominated by students, Obama said that he had spoken out against going to war in Iraq in 2002, even as advisers told him it would be a mistake to challenge a popular president, George W. Bush. Then an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama said he did so because he did not want to ''enter the United States Senate already having compromised on core principles.''

''We've had enough of ... triangulation and poll-driven politics,'' he said. ''That's not what we need right now.'

Well, maybe Sen. Clinton is a triangulator or maybe she isn't. What is clear to me, though, is that since Sen. Obama has made this one of his key lines of criticism, it raises the obvious question:

If Sen. Clinton is a triangulator, what is Sen. Obama exactly?

In this post, I will focus on Sen. Obama's past positions and statements that, to me, are pretty revealing of what he really believes and how he stacks up on the topic of triangulation against the Eeeevil Calculating TriangulatorTM Sen. Hillary Clinton. The data shines a bright light on the real "elephant in the room": there is the usual, huge Clinton Double Standard at work when it comes to portrayals of Sen. Clinton as a triangulator in comparison to the almost saintly portrayals of Sen. Obama. (Please refer to the Conclusions section for a synopsis of my findings).

For clarity, I've divided this post into the following segments:

1. No Compromises Before Getting Elected

2. Iraq

3. Iran

4. MoveOn.Org and Petraeus

5. Abortion

6. Gays

7. Faith and Religion

8. War, Corporations, Supreme Court

9. Social Security

10. Healthcare

11. Joe Lieberman

12. The Piece-de-resistance

13. The Non-Ideologue v. The Partisan

CONCLUSIONS

[Perry Logan]

1. Thanks for posting. I sure wouldn't want to have eriposte investigating me.

[Maven]

2. This cuts right to the heart of it.

Thanks for posting.

[Evergreen Emerald]

3. image over substance.

That is how we got here in the first place. Bush, with the help of the media, created an illusion. And we, so lazy and eager to eat up everything we see on TV, bought the image.

[Rock_Garden]

4. Wo, he hacked into that jungle with a big machete, didn't he?

[maximusveritas]

5. You find what you're looking for I guess

In this case, we have someone looking for evidence that Obama is more of a triangulator than Clinton. And suprise! that's what he found. It's almost embarassing.

If he thinks protecting the Democratic Presidential ticket on Iraq is a form of triangulation, he obviously has no clue whatsoever about what triangulation means.

[Gloria]

6. MMM...did the writer steal my line?? LOL

When Obama first emerged, I dubbed him the "triangulator in training"!!!
Recently, I've taken to calling him "Hillary-lite."

This should be email bombed all over Iowa and NH etc.

[ClarkUSA]

7. The Left Coaster endorsed Hillary and has been churning out Obama hit pieces ever since

What's next, another Taylor "HillaryIs44 contributor" Marsh BS ad hominem attack HuffPo blog? Oh sorry, that was yesterday... and The Daily Howler
the day before that. Nice rototion Hillaryworld has there... Mark Penn must be busy this weekend cribbing talking points, eh? :eyes:

[Progress And Change]

8. the truth is never a hit piece. the article exposes Obama for what he is

As usual, no ObamaNation member is debating the facts presented in the OP...

[maximusveritas]

9. Seriously, the guy references Marsh 5 times

Jane Hamsher twice, and Jerome another time.

Talk about self-referencing.

[BeyondGeography]

13. The only thing missing from that circle is Astroglide

[cuke]

19. Another attack on the messenger

Obama supporters can never defend Obama because the criticisms are true.

[Progress And Change]

23. his supporters are as hallow as obama's platform

[Progress And Change]

10. great post that exposes obama as the ultimate triangulator

[patrice]

11. Thanks for this. I will study it.

If I believed in swearing, I could swear on my own heart that I **want** to support Obama AND I want to support him because he is Black, but this is about more than what I want.

I have been hyper-sensitive to everything about the Invasion of Iraq from the first whisper and I must say that Obama's opposition, relative to the magnitude of the error in our ways, was clearly tentative, until it became more obvious that there was some popular support for opposition to the war. I'm sorry to say that this does not exemplify Change to me and many well meaning people are being mis-lead, once again, by paid handlers.

But going into the caucuses, the War is not my absolutely primary issue. I am very concerned about support, or at least some tendency toward, Universal Health Care, and I'm worried about covert trends to privitize Social Security. Maybe all of these worries could be wiped away by one Change that would give The People a chance to address the other issues; that change would be Voting Reform (a National Voting Holiday with Paper Ballots counted in Public - NO MACHINES) and Publicly Financed Campaigns.

If Obama is about Change, he'll stop traingulating and step up to bat.

[Progress And Change]

12. many of us also once wanted to support mr. obama

:(

[patrice]

14. Yep. And, believe it or not, we're not so naive as to not recognize

the functionality of Triangulation. It is a (as in ONE) survival skill. It IS necessary, but so is putting pressure on the process by taking a chance with true leadership. I have been hoping, but haven't seen anything yet but triangulation. I'm going to double-check myself on my last sentence by finding Oprah's speech endorsing Obama and listen to her analysis of the issues that would ostensibly be the reason for her support.

[Progress And Change]

24. oprah did not offer one substantive, policy-based reason for supporting obama

It was all "Hope"© bs with platitudes and things that have to do with special intagibles that Obama supposedly solely possesses that his PR team has sold us...

[Lucinda]

15. Thanks! I had thought about compiling my own list. I'd like to see this done for everyone.

[Zueda]

16. A very special message to you know who.

010010000110100101101100011011000110001001101111011101000111001100101100001000000100001101100001011011100010000001111001011011110111010100100000011010000110010101100001011100100010000001101101011001010010000001101110011011110111011100111111001000000100011101101001011101100110010100100000011010010111010000100000011101010111000000100001

[madrchsod]

17. dead horse alert ! oh i`m sorry

some of the du members have`t heard this latest taylor marsh/eriposte tale of the big bad obama..

[patrice]

20. May I ask you what good it does to belittle people's concerns? This is "Change"?

Our concerns aren't real? Isn't that a **little** like the master and the slave?

No matter what you may think of eriposte, political insiders are not the whole story. Why doesn't it matter that real people have their own thoughts and feelings about whatever eriposte says? Why aren't you concerned about the extent to which real people's thoughts and feelings over-lap, or not, those of eriposte? Or is the game just really all there is?

A bunch of people booed HC recently in a forum in which I think they quite possibly were confused about her response. I'm not even an HC supporter, but that sort of thing looks exactly like replacing the old master with the new master. It's only a question of time before we're repeating the same or worse mistakes.

Right now, I consider "Change" a sacred potential, so I'm not going to go around saying it's real, when I can SEE that it isn't.

[cuke]

22. Another Obama supporter who can't defend Obama

All they can do is attack the messengers (and Clinton)

[IndianaGreen]

18. What we got here is more of the Clintonistas' rage that the public won't crown their Queen

Couple that with the contempt of the Democratic establishment for its rank-and-file, as evidenced by Pelosi's claim that they know what's best for us, and you got the classic intra-party class warfare.

[Progress And Change]

25. what does clinton have to do with obama's record of cowardice and his deception on his record?

[IndianaGreen]

26. When it comes to moral cowardice, deception, and triangulation, the Clintons are the Masters!

And I will repeat that the current slew of vicious anti-Obama attacks are the result of the elitists being pissed their Queen is being denied her Crown.

[zulchzulu]

21. My response to this author's "assessments"

1. No Compromises Before Getting Elected

The use of cherry picking Obama's quote and taking out the critical part of his statement "from his vantage point" by Russert and Bill Clinton has already been exposed. The author wants to act like Obama's statements firmly against the Iraq War didn't exist. They do.

2. Iraq

Obama has voted for the troops AFTER the war was already started. He has also worked for setting up timelines before any funding is expended. Should he vote against the troops that were sent into war by candidates like Edwards, Clinton, Biden and Dodd?

3. Iran

Again, the Kyl-Lieberman amendment did more than just say the Iran needed to stop making nuclear weapons. It gave Bush the opportunity to do what he did with the Iraq War Resolution, voted approvingly by the candidates mentioned above.

4. MoveOn.Org and Petraeus

The legislation with MoveOn and Patraeus was inane and stupid. It was a waste to even give the Republicans the opportunity to make a non-issue an issue. Obama didn't vote for it. Who cares.

5. Abortion

Obama's pristine support from NARAL, Planned Parenthood and other women's choice groups shows that he is firmly for woman to be able to choose. The bullshit from the Clinton crowd is sickening and desparate.

6. Gays

More pathetic bullshit simply because someone who may disagree with the outer segments of the LGBT community performed at one concert (Obama was not there as some have lied about)... Obama's record supporting the LGBT community firmly shows that he has been working for their rights for 20+ years. More Clinton bullshit...

7. Faith and Religion

More claptrap about how Democrats shouldn't bother to appeal to those people of faith. It's not only stupid and ignorant, it is an attempt to try to shut out so many progressive Christians out there that are Democrats already. Nowhere does Obama even dare try to break the line between church and state.

8. War, Corporations, Supreme Court

More misuse of quotes to somehow sting along the fallacy of the OP... was Russ Feingold and Patrick Leahy wrong about Roberts too? Are all corporations "bad"? Frankly, the title of this section is obtuse anyway.

9. Social Security

More misjudgment of Obama's policy choices on Social Security. It appears if you lie enough that Obama is for privatization enough, then somehow it will stick. Obama has firmly said he's against privatizing Social Security.

10. Healthcare

Obama continues to ask just how mandated healthcare insurance can be fulfilled. Krugman won't say. Clinton won't say. Edwards says that a person would be assigned a policy and would be fined or have wages garnished if they dare not stay on the plan. Will that work? Better yet, will mandated healthcare insurance legislation ever get passed? No. If anything, it's a poison pill to make it so healthcare reform never happens.

11. Joe Lieberman

Gore picked him for VP. Biden likes Lieberman. So does Edwards. So does Clinton. So does Dodd. They all have in the past. Obama supported Lieberman until he lost and then was not for him when he ran as an Independent, supporting Lamont instead.

12. The Piece-de-resistance

Apparently the author thinks that all progressives march in some kind of lockstep on all the issues and that there is some manual that needs to be adhered to. Obama has stated that a progressive "checklist" isn't useful. I'd say the very notion of being progressive is to be ahead of the curve, not dragged down by old ideas, more independent than not on many issues.

13. The Non-Ideologue v. The Partisan

This old chestnut from some people is that we can't work with those we may have disagreements with on some issues. It is apparent that the author must not like a true progressive like Russ Feingold, who has the balls and intelligence to work across the aisle to get things done.

This ruse that we shouldn't talk with those we disagree with is EXACTLY what George Bush has done in terms of lack of diplomacy. Are Democrats to be the party of xenophobic partisans that only allow "like-minded" progressives who "use the checklist" and just play political theater at the expense of those that just want to get things done?

[cuke]

29. What a load of bullshit and double talk

1) The fact is, Obama has spun so much that his comments could justify ANY position. He has been both for the war, and not for the war. He has even ADMITTED to lying about his position on the war for political reasons. So I'm sure Obama has made statements firmly against the Iraq War. I'm also sure he's made statements saying his position was similar to bush*'s. The article points this out, but for some reason, you don't say anything about this

2) The votes weren't for "the troops" as you disingenously claim. The votes were to fund the war.

Remember the war? It's the one Obama supposedly opposes but is willing to fund. He has also expressed a desire to "win" in Iraq. And his voting record is identical to Clintons on this issue. The article points this out, but for some reason, you don't say anything about this

3) Obama was a CO-SPONSOR of S.970 which designated the IRG a terrorist organization, just like K/L. Obama LIED and said that his non-vote on K/L was a "protest". He later claimed that he didn't know when the vote was going to be held, which must have made his protest so hard to schedule. He later admitted it was his mistake that he didn't vote. The article points this out, but for some reason, you don't say anything about this

4) Obama ducked the MoveOn vote, calling it petty. Earlier, Obama voted for a similarly petty bill by Boxer. FOr some reason, you don't say anything about the Boxer bill

5) You say nothing about the criticisms the article raises. Again, you've got nothing but talking points and blather

6) You say nothing about the criticisms the article raises. Again, you've got nothing but talking points and blather followed by accusations. No defense of Obama to be found

7) And again, you say nothing about facts in the article. Its obvious that you've grown tired of even pretending to defend Obama, and are now just ranting

[MethuenProgressive]

27. Extremely well done fact collecting/fact checking. "the reality of Obama versus the image"

Always good to see a well reasoned, well researched, and objective look at the candidates.

[Progress And Change]

28. i second that