Obama's Elixir Bewitches Rich
Posted on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 12:54:15 AM EST
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Frank Rich fancies himself a wizened cynic, awake to all the ills of Democratic spinelessness. But Obama weaved his spell, to the point that Rich rips Hillary for the exact positions Obama himself holds, while getting his facts wrong in the process. Too funny:
That’s why it’s important to remember that on one true test for his party, Iraq, he was consistent from the start. On the long trail to a hotly competitive senatorial primary in Illinois, he repeatedly questioned the rationale for the war before it began, finally to protest it at a large rally in Chicago on the eve of the invasion [Since Obama ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004, it is hard to see how Obama could have been doing that]. He judged Saddam to pose no immediate threat to America and argued for containment over a war he would soon label “dumb” and “political-driven.” He hasn’t changed. In his new book, he gives a specific date (the end of this year) for beginning “a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops” and doesn’t seem to care who calls it “cut and run.” Contrast this with Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, who last week said that failed American policy in Iraq should be revisited if there’s no improvement in “maybe 60 to 90 days.” This might qualify as leadership, even at this late date, if only John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, hadn’t proposed exactly the same time frame for a re-evaluation of the war almost a week before she did.
Obama's position on Iraq today is precisely Hillary Clinton's position - the Levin Amendment's no set date withdrawal resolution. But Frank Rich is intent on lionizing Obama, damn the facts.
Frank Rich says Barack Obama doesn't care who calls him a cut and runner? How about this?
BLITZER: And joining us now from Capitol Hill, Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois.We'll get to politics, we'll get to some other issues in a moment, Senator. But what about this Republican effort right now to paint not only you, but almost all Democrats as weak on terror? In the words of one House Republican leader, "more interested in protecting terrorists than the American public"?
How are you going to fight back on that?
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), ILLINOIS: Well, first of all, I hope they didn't say it about me personally. . . .
Rich is really clueless. He writes:
If the Democratic Party is to be more than a throw-out-Bush party, it can’t settle for yet again repackaging its well-worn ideas, however worthy, with a new slogan containing the word “New.” It needs a major infusion of steadfast leadership.
And that is the point. Obama does not want to lead. He wants to buff his image, and he is doing it well:
What little criticism Mr. Obama has received is from those in his own camp who find him cautious to a fault, especially on issues that might cause controversy. The sum of all his terrific parts, this theory goes, may be less than the whole: another Democrat who won’t tell you what day it is before calling a consultant, another human weather vane who waits to see which way the wind is blowing before taking a stand. That has been the Democrats’ fatal malady, but it’s way too early and there’s too little evidence to say Mr. Obama has been infected by it. If he is conciliatory by nature and eager to entertain adversaries’ views in good faith, that’s not necessarily a fault, particularly in these poisonous times. The question is whether Mr. Obama will stick up for core principles when tested and get others to follow him.
Ths, all the evidence is that Barack is NOT a leader, a fighter for his principles, and not a fighter for the Democratic Party.
Rich's column is so off base, so riduclously full of Beltway BS, that he has lost all rights to smirk for the next year.
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