Reading t3h internets for the past few days, the critcism of Obama is pretty disconcerting. Folks like Kos and Arianna Huffington are shitting bricks over Obama's position on FISA, Heller, faith-based initiatves, and capital punishment because they *gasp* reveal a more conservative side to Obama. Yes, I say reveal because he's always held these stated positions, but these issues never quite came up during the Democratic primary. His views have been consistent, and it sucks that these "political analysts" weren't able to recognize that. Read his books. Watch his speeches. He has especially talked about his stances on guns and religion a lot.
Obama has also consistently called the Democratic Party a big tent of ideas, and that he doesn't necessarily agree with every position. Everytime Obama has said this, Democrats waved it off and said "yeah, yeah, he has to say that..." or overlooked it in general. It's not Senator Obama's fault that people haven't been paying attention. If you wanted a nominee who accepted the party line for every vote, you should have gone for Kucinich.
For some reason, it feels as if Senator Obama is excited to reveal his more conservative views. It hasn't occured to me until this week, why so many Republicans like and respect him. When Obama talks about bipartisanship, he means it. You don't accrue a record of bringing people together if you are a puppet of MoveOn.
Obama was an attractive candidate because he has always been unapologetic about his positions, a trait that liberals often lack. So don't expect him to walk back and change his stances in order to mollify the likes of Kos and Ezra Klein.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Great post. Well said.
Post a Comment