TOP 10 OBAMA FLIP-FLOPS ON FUNDAMENTAL POLICY ISSUES

By Blogonaut

We have been hearing a lot of criticism from John McCain calling Obama a flip-flopper. So we wondered, on how many important policy issues has Obama changed his position in an attempt to make himself a more appealing presidential candidate?

We counted 10 such flip-flops. Here they are in no particular order:

1. SPECIAL INTERESTS. In January, the Obama campaign described union contributions to the campaigns of Clinton and John Edwards as "special interest" money. Obama changed his tune as he began gathering his own union endorsements. He now refers respectfully to unions as the representatives of "working people" and says he is "thrilled" by their support.

2. THE CUBA EMBARGO. In January 2004, Obama said it was time "to end the embargo with Cuba" because it had "utterly failed in the effort to overthrow Castro." Speaking to a Cuban American audience in Miami in August 2007, he said he would not "take off the embargo" as president because it is "an important inducement for change."

3. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. In a March 2004 questionnaire, Obama was asked if the government should "crack down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants." He replied "Oppose." In a Jan. 31, 2008, televised debate, he said that "we do have to crack down on those employers that are taking advantage of the situation."

4. DECRIMINALIZATION OF MARIJUANA. While running for the U.S. Senate in January 2004, Obama told Illinois college students that he supported eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana use. In the Oct. 30, 2007, presidential debate, he joined other Democratic candidates in opposing the decriminalization of marijuana.

5. NAFTA. During the primary season, Obama hammered Hillary Clinton for her support of NAFTA as First Lady, calling the free trade agreement "devastating" and "a big mistake." Now, in an interview with Fortune to be featured in the magazine's upcoming issue, the presumptive Democratic nominee said that NAFTA has indeed been positive for the US in some ways, and that his earlier criticism - while trying to convince white blue collar voters in some states to vote for him - was 'overheated and amplified.'

6. THE DEATH PENALTY. 10 years ago, when Obama was running for statewide office in an ultra-liberal Chicago district, he opposed the death penalty. As Obama announced this week, he now supports the ultimate penalty.

7. HANDGUN BAN. For 8 years—before becoming a US Senator—Obama sat on the board of a non-profit which contributed $2.7 million to efforts advocating for a complete ban on handguns. (Before that, Obama filled out a questionnaire in 1996 stating that he supported a ban on the manufacture, sale AND POSSESSION of handguns.) But starting with his primary campaign in the gun popular Midwest, Obama now opposes such legislation, and claims to support gun owner’s rights.

8. PROPOSED FISA LAW IMMUNITY FOR TELECOMS. In October, 2007, Obama pledged that if the FISA bill contained an immunity provision for telecoms, he would not only oppose the bill, he would help block it through a filibuster. This week, he voted for the bill, telecom immunity provisions and all.

9. PUBLIC FINANCING FOR OBAMA’S GENERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN. In November, 2007, Obama issued a written pledge to opt into the public campaign finance system for the general presidential election, if the Republican nominee also did so. John McCain immediately accepted the pledge, which acceptance Obama acknowledged in writing in November 2007. After he became the Republican nominee, McCain opted into the public finance system (as he pledged to do), but Obama broke his pledge and opted out.

10. THE WAR IN IRAQ. In 2004—when Obama was running for the United States Senate-- Barack Obama not only said that he was open to a U.S. troop increase in Iraq, but warned against a premature troop withdrawal as a "slap in the face to the troops fighting there" which could make Iraq "an extraordinary hotbed of terrorist activity." Fast forward to Obama’s presidential campaign premised in large part on an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

These 10 examples evince 180 degree changes by the Senator from Chicago on fundamental issues going to the core of Obama as a candidate, and provide important indications of whether the “change” candidate will do what he promises to do in the campaign to court our votes.

Legitimate questions are also raised as to whether Obama is accurately portraying himself during the election process, or is he simply feinting to the middle like the good basketball player he is?

How many more Obama flip-flops can we expect before November, 2008, and to what extent can the “change” candidate continue to portray himself a different kind of politician who rejects “politics as usual”?

Quote of the Day

Michelle Obama:

“I mean, ‘whitey’? That’s something that George Jefferson would say. Anyone who says that doesn’t know me. They don’t know the life I’ve lived. They don’t know anything about me.”

Conservatives Are Full Of It.

Former UN ambassador John Bolton claims Iranian missile could possibly ‘hit some military installations’ in the U.S.

The current range of Iran’s Shahab missiles is said to be 1,200 miles, but the United States and Iran are much more than 1,200 miles apart. The approximate distance between Tehran and Washington, D.C. is actually 6,340 miles.

Republican hack Mary Matalin repeats lie about China drilling off the coast of Cuba.

Conservative pundit Mary Matalin insisted on opening more U.S. land, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to oil drilling, claiming that the U.S. is “the only nation” impeding efforts at more drilling. She repeated the conservatives’ current favorite lie: that China is drilling near Cuba, just off the coast of Florida — even though the lie has been thoroughly debunked and Vice President Cheney himself has admitted the story was false.

Barack Obama's Speech on Father's Day

Everything Is Not About You or The Clintons

Seriously.

Hiring Patti Solis Doyle, which one can argue is a bad managerial move, is not an insult or a slap in the face to Hillary Clinton. People like Big Tent Democrat at Talk Left and the Clinton dead enders are going to have a melt down when Obama does not pick Hillary Clinton as his Vice Presidential running mate.

John Cole:

So hiring former Clinton staffers is a slap in the face, thinking about nominating a woman other than Clinton as VP is a slap-in-the-face, and, well, pretty much everything is a slap-in-the-face. THE QUEEN BEE DOES NOT HAVE THE NOMINATION, AND EVERYTHING IS A SLAP IN THE FACE.

John McCain: Swimmers Needed 'To Get Bin Laden'

Apparently the only thing stopping us from getting Bin Laden is the lack of human spies who can swim in between the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Republican Presidential candidate John McCain, once again giving the American people the straight talk.

“I will look you in the eye and promise you that I will get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice,” McCain said in response to a direct question from one of the 2,000 people in attendance at the college’s Pemberton campus gym.

McCain said the key to ending the long search for bin Landen was to increase the number of human spies abroad.

“We need better human intelligence. We need people who can swim in the water,” McCain said.

As the map above notes, there is no mass of water in between the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan. So, what the hell is the very serious John McCain talking about?

JUDGE KOZINSKI GETS BAD RAP WITH “PORN’ ACCUSATION

By Stephen Gianelli
June 13, 2008

By now most of the world has read about the Los Angeles judge presiding over a porn trial (involving fetish material) who was allegedly “caught” with fetish porn himself. Except that, the truth is a little different. Let me explain.

First, the “judge” is Justice Alex Kozinski, who not only has a brilliant legal mind and an impeccable and distinguished reputation as a federal appellate judge, he just took over as the chief Judge of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. He was randomly assigned to preside over a pornography trial scheduled to begin a few days ago in Los Angeles—something federal appellate judges sometimes do.

As the trial was just getting under way, someone hacked into a web archive maintained by Justice Kozinski’s family (including his adult son, Yale), downloaded material without permission, then leaked to the LA Times the accusation that Kozinski had a personal fetish porn stash of his own.

My first take was that if the Kozinski material was similar to the “porn” in the trial he is presiding over (it reportedly included “fetish” and “bestiality” themes), given that Kozinski had publicly commented to the The Times that he did not think the material on his home server was “obscene”, a reasonable person might doubt his impartiality to sit on such a case.

However, I have since looked at the material myself, and in doing so have concluded there is no legal or moral issue involved.

There is nothing there that is "obscene", and most of the material is not even pornographic.

For example, the so called “bestiality” themed material is simply a humorous (in a juvenile way) You Tube style video of a visibly aroused donkey chasing a laughing fat guy around a field. It is not intended to arouse.

The other talked about item in reality consisted of two gorgeous fashion models whose naked bodies are painted to look like cow hide. They are not doing anything sexual, and are smiling. Hardly controversial stuff. I have seen racier photos in Vogue and Esquire--let alone Playboy and Penthouse.

The so called “striptease” “slideshow” is simply one of those PowerPoint joke email attachments that invite the reader to “spot the real woman” as opposed to the sprinkled in transsexuals. Except for the naked “reveals” I saw the same thing on a Maury Povich TV episode. I used to get stuff like this all the time from some of my real estate clients.

Second, the material was maintained on a family server that stored family photos, videos, and the like. An archive where the Kozinski family stored digital files of all sorts.

While the site was not password protected, one would have to know the web directory extension name to access it, since none of the material was indexed or registered with any search engine. This was a private web archived file that a persistent disgruntled former litigant prowled around and essentially hacked in to find and then download without permission in order to hurt Kozinski. The fact that Kozinski was temporarily in Los Angeles presiding over a pornography trial, and that the material was leaked to a Los Angels newspaper as that trial was just getting underway speaks volumes about the motives of the hacker/leaker.

Unfortunately, the story line “judge presiding over porn trial gets caught with porn” is just too “dog bites man” for the media to look beneath the surface of the that rather appealing sound bite—so the story has rocketed around the world—just at the malicious hacker intended.

Judge Kozinski treats his clerks well (by all accounts, very well), has a brilliant legal mind, has a reputation for intellectual honesty, does not take himself too seriously, is an all around nice guy, a good husband and father, and he has been badly embarrassed by what has turned out to be a tempest in a teapot.