July 8, 2008
Obama supporters: If you think my “I told you so” posts are brutal…
…this one from Charles Lemos at No Quarter is one for the vaults — a real keeper:
The Plight of the Obama Crowd I have zero compassion for them. Anyone who supported Obama after March 2008 is clearly either a delusional Obama cultist or a head in the sand idiot. This one is on you.
You had better more experienced choices, say Senator Joe Biden. You had better more principled candidates who live their convictions, say Representative Dennis Kucinich. You had a reform-minded committed populist, say former Senator John Edwards. And then you had Hillary Clinton who despite some flaws encompassed all the best qualities of the aforementioned. You dug the Democratic Party’s grave, now wallow in it for all I care.
For months, countless voices of reason have pointed out time and again, Obama is an empty suit… Obama is a fraud. He lacks experience. He has no relevant qualifications. He has no conviction other than his own political welfare.
His past behaviour is troublesome. He threw Alice Palmer and four others off the ballot. His rise through the labyrinth of Chicago politics took him down some worrisome alleys and forged alliances with a cast of characters include Louis Farrahkan, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the Reverend James Meeks, Antonin Rezko, Rashid Khalidi, William Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn. Now he pals around with Donnie McClurkin, Father Michael Pfleger, and Jodie Evans.
For months committed liberals like Paul Krugman, in column after column, demonstrated how his proposals weren’t that progressive or even centrist. I’ve grown hoarse pointing out Obama’s lobbyist connections and his ties to the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries. …
But you would not listen. You were mired in a speech that Obama gave in 2002. I hope that speech keeps you warm the next four years because that’s is the extent of his progressive record, a speech. His real record is far more centrist (that reach out across the aisle and ream someone kind of record), or perhaps corporatist is a better choice of words. Six billion dollars in subsidies to the oil & gas industry and $12 billion in subsidies to nuclear power industry. …
His votes in the Senate were more pro-Bush than Hillary’s, than Biden’s, than Dodd’s, than Edwards’. Progressive Punch ranked Obama the 42nd most progressive member of the Senate. There are 49 Democrats and one Socialist and one “Independent” in the Democratic Caucus. Forty-second out of 51. Funny how that is. Laughing yet?
Now, you are upset that he is backtracking. News flash: he says what he thinks will please his audience at the moment and then he does whatever he thinks will advance his career the most. And what a career it is. Zero legislative accomplishments. Zip. Name one. He has missed 42% of the votes in the Senate this year. Over the comparable period, Hillary missed 30%. That’s over a quarter more votes missed. Not trivial and by design. He and his handlers don’t want him to have a record to run on.
You think his vote on FISA was shocking. Really? He is the candidate of corporate interests, the candidate of the anti-Clinton Democratic establishment. …
Obama is the designated one, the annointed one, but you satistified yourselves with silly speeches and satiated yourselves with empty platitudes galore. You went for the hip and the flash, a no-hit wonder who hasn’t even come to bat yet. He moves from one on deck circle to another never fully entering the game. …
So far he’s trampled on the Fourth Amendment, a women’s right to choose, the health care of all Americans and now the cornerstone of what brung him to the dance in the first place, that magical speech in 2002 that had to be re-recorded so it could be replayed again and again and use your opposition to a fruitless war as his springboard to power. …
It’s a long one, and worth the full read, so do click the link and settle in.
About the only point I disagree with is the idea that a McCain presidency would be superior to an Obama presidency; I sincerely believe they would be equally disastrous.
Other than that, I’m left wondering — as I have been since Obama started coming clean about who he really is and what he really represents — whether Hillary Clinton actually might have a chance at the nomination after all. No, that’s not the wishful thinking of a dedicated Hillary supporter (I’m a Kucinich woman, remember — although at this point I would give my eyeteeth to have Clinton beat the pants off McCain); I’m simply observing that the convention hasn’t happened yet, and wondering how many superdelegates are rethinking their commitment to Obama.
I also wonder why Obama is showing his hand now, rather than after the nomination is safely in his pocket. I know of no constituency whose votes are up for grabs on the basis of support for illegal wiretapping, or delaying an Iraq pullout — or, in short, whose votes rest on a Republican candidate who happens to have a D after his name. Obama is embracing much of the agenda the American public is dying to get away from — the Bush agenda — which is the sole reason the Democratic Party was practically assured of a lock on the White House: the people want a radical departure from anything Bush. (Emphasis on the word “was”; blind Obama worship has put the Democratic Party in a tenuous position; the White House is no longer a sure thing. And with the spectacular failure of do-nothings Pelosi and Reid, I am beginning to doubt my once near-certain prediction that Democrats will pick up some 30 or 40 seats in the House alone this November.)
That’s what’s got the Obama supporters in such a tizzy: Obama sold himself on the ideal of “change” everybody wanted, and then pulled the rug right out from under those gullible enough to buy the hype without taking a critical look at the man himself. They bought into that “blank screen” business.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you look at Obama and see no “there” there.If you’re an Obama supporter, nothing gets your goat like a Clinton supporter saying Obama is all style and no substance.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you ask Obama supporters to show you Obama’s substance.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you tell Clinton supporters that Obama is a “blank screen” onto which you’re supposed to project all your own hopes and dreams.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, the “blank screen” line just means there’s no “there” there.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you get angry when the Clinton supporters dismiss the “blank screen” concept.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you ask the Obama supporters to explain, in their own words, what Obama intends to actually do.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you direct all Clinton supporters to Obama’s Web site, to read somebody else’s words — and then complain that nobody reads Obama’s Web site.
If you’re a Clinton supporter, you’ve combed through Obama’s Web site, repeatedly, and find no “there” there.
Sometimes it’s eerie when your own words are even clearer to you in reflection than they were the day you wrote them.
Filed under: Barack Obama, Democrats, Election 2008, Privacy
