I won’t be considering voting for Barack Obama any further in the Democratic primary. He has raised far too many red flags, sounding like a conservative, for me to consider him any more. It started when he began talking about the social security crisis (there is no crisis, Senator) and it just kept on going and going and going, like the Energizer Bunny powering a tape recording of Rethuglican talking points. The last straw was Obama’s praise of Ronald Reagan, who has done more to destroy liberal and progressive values in this country than anyone else. Lambert chronicles them all of Barack Obama’s right-wing talking points, and explains why they matter (although Lambert seems to miss Obama’s health plan which does not include a mandate for everyone to be covered — not only is it not acceptable to me to have a country where people can remain without health care coverage, but this also allows those currently healthy to withdraw from the system and not pay into the system, pushing costs up for everyone.)
Update (1/19/08): Digby has more, including how to talk about Reagan to advance progressive goals, and how Obama failed that test.
Update (1/20/08): Paul Rosenberg also gives examples of what Obama could have said that would split conservatives, instead of what Obama actually said, which has had the effect of dividing progressives.
Avedon Carol says: “I want a candidate who has the proper disgust for Ronald Reagan” and points us to a candidate that I currently support, John Edwards. In fact, here is what Edwards has to say about Ronald Reagan: “He was openly — openly — intolerant of unions and the right to organize. He openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country. He openly did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day. The destruction of the environment ... eliminating regulation of companies that were polluting and doing extraordinary damage to the environment. I can promise you this: this president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example for change.”
All of Obama’s talk about change and hope is fine, and even inspiring to some, but change can go in many directions, and it seems that the direction Obama appears to be going is not the direction I want to go. John Edwards for President.
2 comments:
..then you would be supporting John Edwards based on a fundamental lack of reading comprehension. Obama never praised Reagan, he was just saying that he feels he could shift the trajectory of american politics like reagan did. There is no praise there. Are people that daft, or that intellectually dishonest?
Let's see ... argument without providing an explanation. Not very effective. (There are lots of smart people who think he was praising Reagan; I linked to some of them) So please tell us, what of Obama's words lead you to believe he was discussing shifting American politics like Reagan did and that it wasn’t praise. Let's see a quote; let's see the logical argument from that quote.
Further, argument via implied insult. Not very effective. Very weak argument. I am neither daft nor intellectually dishonest for holding the positions I hold.
But throw out the Reagan comments. Let's say for the sake of argument you are correct about the Reagan comments. There is a whole host of other reasons I cited (leading me to wonder about your reading comprehension) — and people in my links cited — that bring me to the conclusion that Obama does not hold the views that I hold on a lot of very important issues: social security, unions, tax policy, health insurance policy, tax policy, his reference to trial lawyers, and on and on and on, that are not progressive and not what I am looking for in a candidate.
And even on a level of Obama being a good communicator and letting the electorate know exactly what he stands for, why refer to Reagan at all in an oblique and easily misunderstood way (if indeed the people who think he was praising Reagan are misunderstanding)? Why not actually refer to how you are going to change the society when you are President? Why didn’t Obama say something like this: “I am going to make people’s jobs more secure; I am going to provide middle class and poor Americans with more financial security; I am going to end Republican policies that redistribute wealth to the richest Americans from everyone else; I am for universal health insurance; I am opposed to private accounts as a replacement or augmentation to Social Security"? Why didn’t he communicate in such a straightforward and clear fashion, instead of in an oblique fashion by referring to Ronald Reagan? I have not read every single speech Obama has given (I admit it!), nor has the media transcribed every single speech Obama has given, so if he has said something along the lines of what I wrote, please point it out to me (with a reference). Until such time, when I look at the big picture, I see Obama talking about change, and hope, and from Obama’s own words, the direction of change that he seems to be moving is not a direction that I approve of. My argument is based upon the totality of Obama’s words and positions, and not the Reagan comments in isolation.
Post a Comment