Why Obama’s flips don’t matter
Obama’s figured something out. Or maybe he figured it out a long time ago.
That’s this: if you are so obscure that the public doesn’t know much about you, then changing your mind and then spinning on almost every issue on a daily basis—including issues that you’ve said are core values you hold, such as campaign reform—won’t register. You can reinvent yourself anew every day and your supporters won’t care, because you are a work in progress. And you can even deny you’ve done it, and blame it all on misunderstandings or mischaracterizations of your earlier words.
This is especially true if most of the MSM is in the tank for you. The blogs may weep and the nitpickers may moan, but most people will neither know nor care what you said before, because they’re just learning about you for the first time today, or they love the mellifluous flow of your resonant baritone.
That’s the advantage of being a vague cipher, an unknown, the new kid on the block, and keeping it that way for as long as possible. You can be all things to all people, and even alternate between contradictory positions, and it won’t hurt you.
Obama hinted at this in the introduction to his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope when he wrote:
I am new enough on the national political screen that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripe project their own views. As such I am bound to disappoint some, if not all of them. Which perhaps indicates a second, more intimate theme to this book—namely how I or anybody else in public office, can avoid the pitfalls of fame, the hunger to please, the fear of loss, and thereby retain that kernel of truth, that singular voice within each of us that reminds us of our deepest commitments.
There are three possibilities here. The first is that not only was he fully aware of the advantages he has in being a blank slate, and of the pitfalls involved in running for President and compromising almost everything to gain the office, but he is callously willing to do so and to avoid listening to what he calls “that singular voice within each of us that reminds us of our deepest commitments.” The second is that he doesn’t even realize this is what already has happened to him, and that he has rationalized every such move he has made in his quest for the prize. The third is that his only deep commitment is to becoming President, and that he has not compromised.
I vote for 3.
#3.
Why do I get the sinking feeling it’s inevitable?
He’ll get the presidency. It doesn’t matter wtf Obama flips, flops or reverse somersault’s on. He is the MSM messiah.
We will get “Jimmy Carter II”, just in time for a new crisis with Iran (only this time with nukes, yay!).
Iran is bound to cause problems.
Obama will probably dick around, unsure of what to do, except for wanting to “talk to them”.
Lack of early military action will cause it to escalate.
Oil prices will go up even more, as the crazy mullahs decide to hold the world’s oil supply hostage this time. We’re screwed.
I’ve decided I’m voting for McCain, just so I can loudly proclaim I didn’t vote for Obama when the shit hits the fan.
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No one knows what Obama will do once in office. He has surrounded all sides of most issues. When Obama protests: “But, I have said THIS about that issue” – he is correct. He has said everything about every issue.
What of the undecided voters?
Do they hear what they want to hear? Do they assume Obama will do what they want him to do? After all, Obama did say it or imply their preferred stance at one time or another.
Or, conversely: do the undecideds decide Obama can’t be trusted?
I don’t know the answer. It used to be (in 1996) that character would not move enough votes. Have YouTube, Cable News, Talk Radio changed the equation? Can they use Barack – speaking his own words – to defeat himself?
Might be tough. Barack rarely completes a sentence without adding a qualifier which gives him an out. Within a sentence, Barack speaks the desired message boldly, loudly, charismatically. Within the same sentence, he glazes over the qualifying word or phrase softly, quickly, furtively – yet definitely.
This is a very dislikable tactic. He’s been perfecting it his entire life. He’s gotten away with it, over and over, his entire life. SELL the charisma(!) in big, bold strokes. Sotto voce the qualifier – as if it doesn’t even exist – until later, when you need it for purposes of deniability. Very dislikable.
At this point, I like Hillary Clinton more than I like Barack. I once did not think that possible. I respect her more. I would rather drink beer with her.
“I would rather drink beer with her.”
Hard to disagree with this.
Invite Sonny Barger, and I’ll join you.
My gut tells me he’ll get away with it. My brain screams out, “Don’t let him get away with this!” But most Americans will. They will because he is the blank slate upon which they will write their hopes. They think they see themselves in him. The Pied Piper Narcissist who draws in scads of narcissists to his party.
In four years there will be a lot of disillusioned voters. Mostly from the Middle Muddle, but a few on the Left will defect. It is going to take a very strong nation to undo the damage he and his party are going to do. Some of it will last for decades, like judicial appointments.
Anyone feel as I do that maybe, just maybe, it might be the right thing in the future to shoot or hang judges in order to save the nation from this ruinous usurpation of our liberties?
Every four years, the Democrats nominate a tabula rasa onto which their various groups can project their desired characteristics. This is the only way their multitudinous interest groups can come together on a candidate – because many of the necessary contortions are contradictory, and they can’t afford to lose any of their coalition members. If women’s interest groups really do desert as threatened, Obama is DOA. (The Republican interest groups are fewer, and with minimal contradiction. Their problem is that the group with the most control doesn’t want to go to the mat for principle)
This year, with the Ministry of Truth (aka Traditional Media) working full time on erasing the contradictions from the public memory, it appears likely that the Democratic nominee will succeed. However, the ongoing disintegration of said Ministry makes it likely that this will be the last time.
FredHjr: I hope you’re not serious about the suggestion about the judges.
neoneocon,
Decisions like Boumedine may be a prelude of things to come. And 5-4 in the Heller decision is razor thin and it could have gone the other way.
Do you see a pattern?
What if, in the future, things do get very bad, as our civilization is laid more open to the Islamic enemy, as well as other liberties curtailed by the judiciary?
In the context of armed rebellion, anything is possible. But that would indeed be precipitated by a Constitutional crisis. Outside of that context, no I do not recommend targeted assassinations.
neoneocon, you have to understand that there IS an evolving alliance of the Left and Islam in the West. It’s here in the United States. We no longer live in sedate times. If major elements of our government are failing to protect us or are even actively giving aid and comfort to the enemy, one cannot predict that the American people will be forever supine.
At this point it is impossible to tell whether Obama is an opportunist and charlatan who posed as an ideologue in order to win his party’s nomination or an ideologue who now poses as an opportunist and charlatan in order to win the Presidency. I want to avoid finding out the answer to that question, if possible, and therefore – though Democrat by heritage – will be working for McCain this fall.
This is what Rush Limbaugh says about Obama’s flip-flopping;
Flip-Flop Label Won’t Stick to Obama as He Moves to the Right
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_070708/content/01125106.guest.html
RUSH: We have Obama — and, by the way, folks, on this flip-flop business, let’s not use the word flip-flop. I don’t think it’s going to persuade anybody. It worked with Kerry because Kerry was such n idiot. I mean, his flip-flops were just funny. “I voted for it before I voted against it.” You gotta remember one thing about these flip-flops, and I’m going to stop using the term here in just a second. Most people are not really paying close attention right now to all this, despite what might be record levels of attention, those of us who are involved in this on a day-to-day basis, we are absorbed, and we are detail-oriented; we know Obama upwards and forwards and backwards and hindwards and all that.
[…]
I don’t care how anti-America some of their fringe is, they, as a political party, are not going to saddle themselves with defeat. They might be happy to try to claim victory on this, because there’s a story in the BBC or UK Telegraph or something I have here in the stack — it’s all coming up — about the amazing success that is taking place over there. The word “victory” is being used consistently in much of the foreign media. But here’s what bugs me most about these so-called flip-flops. Every national election, every one of them the liberal Democrats know full well they cannot win. Can you imagine how Hillary Clinton feels today? Obama is now campaigning like Hillary was in the remaining primaries. After Texas, and after Ohio, Obama has now totally taken her campaign, just seized it. She was going after the white working class that was very much upset and disabused of the whole notion of Obama. So now he’s moving in that direction. They do this ’cause they know that far-left-wingism will not win national elections.
They may lie to themselves and say that conservatism is cracking up. They may lie to themselves and say that the era of Reagan or the era of conservatism is over, and that we’re getting ready to usher in a new, far-left agenda. They’re gonna do that if they win, but they’re not going to campaign on it, because it loses. Here’s what’s frustrating. All of these people on our side of the aisle, our so-called media intelligentsia and a number of the country club blue-blood Republicans, the Rockefeller bunch, they think they can’t win as conservatives. They think the Republican Party cannot triumph with a conservative identity, so they go moving left. They move to the Democrats and they move to independents and they try to come up with all these policy shifts that deemphasize the Republican Party base, try to attract the Democrat Party base and get the favorable treatment from the media. In the meanwhile, what are the Democrats doing?
The Democrats are moving in our direction. Obama is moving right. Now, they may say he’s stopped his move right in the middle and in the center, but when he starts flip-flopping on victory in Iraq, when he starts flip-flopping on abortion, when he starts doing a number of these things, gun control, you tell me conservatism — this is maddening. This is maddening. So what could happen here is that as we head into August, when we get to the Democrat National Convention, and Obama starts giving his speech, and if he keeps this stuff up, he may end up sounding just as, quote, unquote, conservative on many things as McCain does. You couple that with his mantra for change and so forth, it may be attractive. The Republican Party is going to have a big job to portray Obama as he really is. He is The Messiah, also known as Senator Obama. He’s not Senator Obama also known as The Messiah. He’s The Messiah also known as Obama.
What a shame! The Republicans offer a walking corpse, so the lunatic fringe (otherwise known as the right) is reduced to snarky whining.
Wow Mandy. You’re, like, so cool.
So useless.
Obama The Great Community Activist is being supported precisely *because* he is unqualified. If Obama was a CEO, or a general, or even white, Hillary would have easily been able to out-victim him in the compassionate little minds of progressives.
In short, people support Obama because they feel guilty about sinful, greedy America. By voting for Obama, they show the world that victims can make it to the top, thus gaining warm fuzzy feelings of personal redemption, especially if one has white guilt.
The dems led the way in the betrayal of South Vietnam (after being primarily responsible for initiating the debacle); Then under Clinton, led the way in the betrayal of the Serbs in the creation of another, even european, Islamic state; Now, under the leadership of Pelosi, they are laying the groundwork, and preparing to betray free Columbia; Once the manchurian candidate Obama is in office the Israelis will be further isolated and betrayed in a major continuation of “peace negotiations” patterned on Carter and Clinton policy, and the muslims will ratchet up the violence once their sovereign “palistine” is formed. The chinese communists are completing the envelopment and destruction of the Tibetans, with only the lip service of feable protest from the free world. North Korea and the “Palistineans” are thriving, or at least surviving on Western, particularly American aid, while Putin has transformed Russia into a composite of modern Czarist/Stalinist rule with fascist undertones, aiding and abetting the mullahs in Iran in their quest for the power to commence the second major holocaust in 100 years against the Jews; In America, we are now encountering repeat incidents of honor killings in muslim homes, while in numerous cities in Europe the police have no go areas where muslim cultures dominate the geography… The global warming demagogues have diverted attention from the most immediate and important problems, including genocide and mass famine in the world, while smug and obnoxious little hypocrites like Mandy gleefully prepare for their little moment of electoral revenge. On campuses in the finest schools in America, now solidly dominated by liberal left-wing academics, conservatives can’t make formal appearances and exercise their right to free speech, without being harrassed by the left-wing cadres, and without major security contingents; Make no mistakes in glossing over these realities. The democrats now have all of the profile of our deadly serious enemies, and of core American values, starting with abortion and a vivid lack of authentic respect for military service, and ending with the promotion of socialism. Obama’s flips, from the Iraq war to “Reverend” Wright, reflect the most dishonest politics in America ever… People simply don’t have enough respect for the profound nature and long term implications of the mission and accomplishments of the Iraq expedition.
Are Supreme Court judges subject to impeachment and if yes, on what grounds? Was there a precedent? If no, you have a huge hole in constitution, because this unaccountable oligarhy can vandalize it on their whim. Where are checks and balances for this body? At this moment, Judge Kennedy has more power than anibody else in the country, exactly because of unpredictability of his vote.
These are about all the relevant US Constitution clauses regarding Congress’ power over Judges.
Article I Section 2
… The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment.
Article I Section 3
… The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present.
Article III Section 1
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.
Congress can Impeach a judge for basically any reason it wants to.. however tradition has a powerful role to play in ensuring that impeaching a judge is a very rare thing and usually done in response to the judge being involved with criminal activity.
But Congress has “sole” power to bring impeachment charges, and try them.. so it can do what it can get away with.
Congress also has immense discretion as to the structure of the Courts and the Judges who staff them.
Congress can eliminate the entire 9th Appealate Court (the one that makes all the Far-left rulings) tomorrow if it wants to.
So like with so many other things.. Congress requires men of courage , wisdom and dicernment… and with such people, it could ensure the Courts work for the American people instead of thsoe trying to murder them.
But alas… Nancy Pelosi.
Sometimes, I wonder if an old-fashioned civil war might be the solution…