The Blog @ Spolitics

Atlantic Praises Obama for Something NYT Says He Never Did

According to the New York Times:

An examination of Mr. Obama’s numerous public statements on the subjects indicates that he…does not advocate immediate, direct or unconditional negotiations with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

Of course, as any one who has followed the campaign knows, that is incorrect (or purposely disingenuous).  In the YouTube debate, Obama said he would commit to meeting with Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-Il, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro without preconditions and in the first year of his presidency.  As Matthew Yglesias points out in the June ‘08 issue of The Atlantic, most thought it was a gaffe Obama would back-pedal away from, but his campaign reaffirmed the position and highlighted it as a key difference between him and the “conventional wisdom” that led us into Iraq.  He commended Obama for finding a distinct foreign policy “voice.”  By the looks of it, Yglesias wrote too soon.  From the same Times article:

Susan E. Rice, a former State Department and National Security Council official who is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate, said that “for political purposes, Senator Obama’s opponents on the right have distorted and reframed” his views. Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state. Mr. Obama believes “that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need,” Dr. Rice said. “But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work.”

If Yglesias had just a waited a couple of weeks longer he would have learned that Obama does, apparently, intend to reverse course on the stance.  And the New York Times is bending over to pave the road. 

A Question for Americans Regarding Gas Prices

It’s hard to take the populist anger about high gas prices seriously.  After all, prices began rising sharply in 2000.  It’s been eight years and still, many Americans (and Democrats in particular) are opposed to oil exploration and drilling in our own territory, building more refineries and building nuclear power plants – even windfarms (yes, I’m talking to you Ted Kennedy) – to supplement our energy needs.  Is $4-a-gallon gas finally high enough to override NIMBY?  If not, why are people complaining?  We’re simply living with the choices we’ve made. 

Let’s Analyze Obama’s Outrage Like We Did Clinton’s Tears

When Hillary Clinton teared up before the New Hampshire primary, the Obama camp — via Jesse Jackson, Jr. — issued a call to analyze her tears in light of the things for which she never cried.  Jackson pointed out that Clinton was crying in self-pity; the woman who didn’t shed any tears for Katrina was only crying for herself. 

So let’s be fair and apply that same standard to Barack Obama’s outrage.  He wasn’t outraged when he first heard about Reverend Wright’s incendiary sermons.  In fact, the lack of vigor with which he denounced Wright’s comments was noted by Clinton in the MSNBC debate and turned into a banal parsing of words and equivocating.  In his Philadelphia speech he said Wright’s comments were par for the course in black churches and similar to comments made by his own grandmother.  So why is he outraged now?  By his own admission, what “particularly angered” him was Wright’s insinuation that his denunciation of those comments was “somehow political posturing.”  Obama wasn’t outraged at the racist, conspiratorial anti-Americanism.  He  only became angered when Wright attacked his integrity — not America’s.  If we needed to analyze Hillary’s tears, certainly we should take a look at what didn’t outrage Senator Obama and compare it to what did; his outrage was about him.