Don't get me wrong, barring another mistake tantamount to last week's FISA reversal then capitulation, I will be voting, and more importantly, campaigning and writing on behalf of the election of Barack Obama in the Fall. Frankly, I'd rather massage Hillary Clinton's thighs with baby oil while a scantily clad Janet Reno videotapes than vote for great grandpa McCain. McCain's candidacy is entirely bereft of ideas to solve the foremost American problems, and more critically, McCain himself is a figure incapable of reconciling the deep divisions plaguing this country presently.
As a result, Barack Obama thus serves as the only plausible for those repelled by the alternative; John McCain's attempt to continue the reign of George W. Bush.
However, that does not mean that Obama should be given unconditional support from his base, irrespective of whatever policy positions he may take.
In the last few weeks, Obama has made a surprising reversal on issues once deemed endemic to the success of his campaign as a straight talking, "post partisan" figure. And yet, Obama has largely received little to no scrutiny or criticism, neither from the press, nor his supporters. The latter is particularly disturbing, as unlike media, they have at least a semblance of credibility remaining. Unfortunately, said supporters could be falling prey to the phenomenon prevalent during the Bush years, in which a political figure is canonized by a particular political group, regardless of whether or not his positions countermand the interests of the group. The tendency to subvert the given candidates positions in favor of a "character based" analysis is what allowed George W. Bush to receive carte-blanche to eviscerate the Constitution's 4th amendment rights, siphon jobs and revenue from the middle to the aristocracy, and start a devastating war in Iraq that carries nefarious ramifications far past January 20th, 2009 when he thankfully departs office.
I've always viewed the liberal constituency as largely immune from the aforementioned deification of political leaders, and that's why the benign reaction to Obama's decisions of the last few weeks have been strikingly troubling. To review, simply look back at his positions on the pivotal political developments this week. In doing so, one will glean the notion that they seem to be antithetical to what his constituency actually wants.
1. Worst of all has to be his brazen reversal of positions on the immunity provisions within the FISA bill that will be voted on in the Senate next week. After firmly pledging to rebut the insertion of these illegal provisions into the bill in January and February, he suddenly reversed course and stated his support for the legislation. His lame excuse for voting the bill, in which he took a page from the Bush playbook and argued that the country is now safer was pitiful, and dangerous.
When the bill ultimately comes to the floor for a vote, and is passed, illegal wiretapping by numerous telecommunications companies will be absolved. The Bush doctrine, which espouses a profound disrespect for the 4th Amendment privacy protections, will be cemented as a legitimate law of the land. I highly doubt that Barack Obama's core supporters want those two things to come to fruition, and it seems odd that they would not question their candidates support for it.
2. His muted response to the striking down of the Washington D.C. hand gun ban should also have been jarring to his base. Whatever your thoughts on gun control may be per se, do the core supporters of Obama generally synchronize their views with the "Originialist" cabal of Scalia and Thomas? I highly, highly doubt they find agreement on any substantive issue, much less gun laws. So why do they excuse their candidate from the same indemnity? By doing so, they are doing the country a disservice by perpetuating the notion that the Democratic candidate can proffer views that coincide with the far right ideologues that inhabit the court, and get away with it.
3. Lately, Obama has taken to bashing MoveOn.org, the "radicals" of the 60's in his stump speeches. MoveOn.org is one of the foremost entities within the net roots movement that perpetuates positive stereotypes of Barack Obama. The "radicals" he indemnifies in speeches are often the theoretical forefathers of what the modern Democratic party. Given this, why is he bashing them? More damningly, how does he think he can get away with it?
Sadly, the complicity of the very voters I refer to constantly in this blog certainly helped enable his attack. More over, their silence on his slightly hypocritical, disingenuous repudiation of sites like MoveOn.org is emblematic of a different problem plaguing Obama's candidacy: he, incorrectly, believes that he must subvert core elements of his constituency in a feeble attempt to "look tough" to swing voters and Republican attackers.
As Keith Olbermann sagaciously pointed out last night on his news program, the Republicans are going to spew venom towards Obama regardless of how "tough" he projects himself to be. Thus, it is purely counterproductive to espouse rhetoric that, at the cost of bashing his constituents, conveys an image of strength. Allowing him to get away with it, as many of his surrogates have to this point, is dangerous both because it ignores the reality of the Republican attack machine, but it also may hurt him down the road, that is, if the GOP can successfully portray him as lacking conviction and principle, as they did to John Kerry in 2004.
4. One of the themes of this blog is the illumination of the mainstream media as often times complicit in perpetuating falsehoods, half-truths and outright lies that the Bush Administration, presidential candidates, and nearly all politicians proffer to disguise their true motives. While this propensity is a staple of John McCain's campaign thus far, Barack Obama has largely stayed above that pernicious fray.
Until this week. General Wesley Clark, in appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday essentially said that while he admires John McCain's patriotism, "crashing fighter planes does not qualify you to be President." Which is entirely a valid opinion. And yet, you know what comes next; cue the Republican faux uproar machine. In consorting with the media, McCain's campaign managed to distort the statements to the point where it sounded like Clark denied the veracity of McCain's patriotism, which he unequivocally did not. Predictably, the media demanded some sort of statement from Barack Obama.
And, they got one. Obama essentially complied with the blatant alteration of Clark's remarks in a speech which heavily criticized the general. As aforementioned, Sen. Obama has largely not fallen into this trap for most of his campaign. However, on this occasion, he played right into the hands of the disingenuous cohabitation between the media and the Republicans which subverts facts, and actual quotes, in the name of rhetorical gerrymandering and outright lies.
Despite this complicity, not a peep emanated from the disparate factions that endorse Sen. Obama's bid for the Oval Office. By allowing him to play along with the Republicans on the issue and escape unscathed, the supporters are allowing Sen. Obama to further his questionable strategy of "moving to the center without recriminations. Inevitably, "moving to the center" as this incident, and as his stark reversal on FISA, really means that a candidate must play to the worst elements of the Republican spin machine, which wholeheartedly propagates fear, lies and distortions as their preferred form of political discourse.
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As I explicitly indicated in the introduction, voting for John McCain for me is as likely as James Inhofe becoming a Greenpeace activist. However, the potential of not voting remains a possibility. As the nascent, but growing outrage at Obama over his maneuvering on FISA, Wes Clark and the DC gun ban indicates, many others Obama supporters may abstain from the ballot box as well in November.
Ultimately, what we all want is a Barack Obama who is both cognizant of the positions he might need to take in swing states and also fiercely committed to the principles that he espoused throughout his entire political career, up until these last few weeks.
By allowing him to ride roughshod over the fundamental goals of the liberal electorate without any sort of tangible consequences, the opposite will be achieved. In order to prevent the party from snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, accountability for Barack Obama, even if its to the detriment of his chances with"Reagan Democrats" or other sections of the electorate he may be attempting to woo with these recent vacillations on warrant less wiretapping and gun control, is the sine qua non of his election in November.
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