Barack Obama: Liar
Just because he amended the answers with his own handwriting, doesn't mean he read the questionnaire.
By Leon H Wolf Posted in 2008 | Liberals | lying | Obamafiles — Comments (34) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I have said since the beginning of this campaign that Barack Obama is not a moderate, even though he does play one on television. Now, via Captain Ed comes this story from the Politico that reveals that Barack Obama may have been... less than forthcoming about his personal role in reviewing the answers to a campaign questionnaire from 1996. By way of refresher, Obama indicated on this questionnaire in 1996 that he favored bans on the manufacture and sale of guns, opposed parental notification for abortions if the child was older than "12 or 13," and categorically opposed the death penalty. Even the least savvy of political viewers will immediately recognize these positions as the positions of a stark raving liberal - which is of course what Barack Obama is at heart. However, this is contrary to the television image that Obama's staff wants to portray, so once this questionnaire surfaced (via, as the Politico so quaintly puts it, "assistance from political sources opposed to Obama’s presidential campaign"), Obama had a couple of choices on how to respond.
First, Obama *could* have simply responded that yes, he did hold those positions when he was a young and naive politician, but he has learned through experience and through conversations with the American people that these positions are divisive, etc. etc. As skilled as Obama is at slinging BS, I'm sure his people could have come up with a way to say it that wouldn't have made it sound like he was trying to throw the Kos wing of the Democratic party (a group that really believes all this stuff very fervently) overboard in the process. Instead, Obama made a very rookie mistake: he figured it would be easier to lie. Easier to lie than to have to try to nuance this issue, especially since he apparently feels that he doesn't really need the Kossacks anymore. Unfortunately, Obama seems to have forgotten that you should never assume that all the copies of your incriminating documents are destroyed, and that you must always leave yourself wiggle room when you're going to deny something that you know some document somewhere can falsify. The words "I can't recall having ever..." is a nice, handy qualifier, and it's even plausible when you're talking about something that occurred 12 years ago.
But that's not what Obama did. Instead, he issued a blanket denial that he ever said or believed any of those things. So that when the document surfaced from the mysterious unnamed political rival of Obama's that showed that he apparently reviewed the answers closely enough to revise some of the answers in his own handwriting, Obama suddenly found himself in an awkward position. You see, everyone who is remotely paying attention to politics knows by now that Obama really is a flaming liberal. However, Obama's general election strategy isn't really geared toward people who remotely pay attention to politics - it is geared toward people who want a President who makes them feel all warm and fuzzy when they talk. And that sort of person isn't going to care so much about a candidate's position about the issues; however, they just might care that the candidate's first instinct when presented with a difficult situation is to try to lie their way out of the predicament.
You see, part of appealing to people who vote based on who looks purty and sounds flowery on TV is appealing to their ridiculously naive willingness to believe that you, and you alone, have managed to get yourself one step away from the Presidency without being a typical politician. And unfortunately for Obama, lying your way out of inconvenient past positions is very "typical politician."
This kind of story is probably not going to affect those who are already convinced that Barack is really the Obamassiah. But while the people who decided Presidential elections may not pay very close attention to the campaign compared to those of use who obsess about these things - that doesn't mean they don't pay attention at all. And this kind of mistake on Obama's part will help dispel the notion that Obama is anything other than what he is: an eminently ordinary, liberal lying politician.
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Barack Obama: Liar 34 Comments (0 topical, 34 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I can't say that Obama doesn't believe that the RKBA is an individual right - I can take him at face value saying he believes it so.
The rub is how he views individual rights alltogether - IMHO, I think that he doesn't view any individual right as important. If the government wants to infringe on how an individual expresses his/her rights, that's ok with him. & that's not ok with me.
Excellent article but why is anyone surprised? I am not a wise political sage but i have always known something is rotten in the state of Denmark when it comes to this guy. Ever since he was a media created candidate for president in 2004, before he was elected to the senate, i knew this guy was bad news and a liberal at heart.
Steven A. Ellis, Esq.
" A typical white person"
Death penalty issues aren't really in the forefront these days, however two others on that questionaire will certainly be exploited by the GOP:
1. Favoring a TOTAL BAN on the sale and manufacture of handguns.
2. Abortion. Obama has gone beyond being "pro-choice", he was in favor of denying medical care to babies that survive abortions, and is opposed to any and all restrictions, including parental notification for pre-teens. That's further than even Hillary Clinton will go.
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
Ahh style...The American Idol candidates have begun. Phone in your votes, America!
What a bunch of crap. This guy is everything but a moderate-American. I still think this a center-right country and McCain has saving graces that will give him the edge going into election day.
The Partisan Report,
www.partisanreport.com
The New York Times reporter actually asked Obama about that: Since Obama is quite open about leaning left on a number of issues, can he win an election with an electorate that historically has voted center-right?
Obama has said that he believes that the country has changed so much in the last ten years that it is now ready to vote for a more liberal candidate. We'll see if he's right.
Polls definitely show that on issues like health care, the country really is sick of HMOs and is ready for some kind of government action. The GOP won't be able to "Harry and Louise" it this time.
But there's no evidence that the country has moved to the left on gun control.
So a centrist candidate like McCain still has a good chance to win the election. But to do it, he will have to take stands on health care and global warming that staunch conservatives are not going to like.
To that extent, Obama is right: The country is changing. This isn't 1980 anymore.
Republicans who are embracing "global warming" are coming to that party as it winds down. Science & events are ahead of them, poking large holes in that theory. I can hope they're going to push for more nuclear energy production as a way to combat "global warming" - may be a wild dream, but sometimes wild dreams are ok...
I don't think that McCain will be forced to embrace nationalized health care - there are alternatives to rectifying the problems in health care that do not entail a failed socialist system.
McCain has a conservative stance on healthcare.
You think that a candidate must be in favor of socialized health care to win? LOL!
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
Do you support state legislation to:
a. ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns? Yes
b. ban assault weapons? Yes
c. mandatory waiting periods and background checks? Yes.
I'm guessing the guy hadn't heard of the 2nd amendment at that point in time. After all, he was educated at Harvard.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Erik
which, naturally, means that he knows even less about the Second Amendment than he would have had he not gotten that stupid degree.
I guess he didn't.
Erik
What he said and did is actually pretty clever - he can have his cake and eat us, too.
http://www.scragged.com/articles/stupid-changes-obama-style---guns.aspx
Fan of
http://www.scragged.com
And...funny turn of phrase you brought out "have his cake and eat us, too".
Erik
Look the man threw an elderly woman that cared for him under the bus on national television. He compared her to a raving lunatic bigot and then lumped in every non black American with her. Net effect ? It stopped him dropping in the polls ?
So my question is will this stick ?
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
If you look at Intrade predictions, his stock is high - 80's. Her's is around 17. I'm not sure how much mileage Intrade predictions are worth.
But, it is sticking to him in a R vs D way. IMHO
Erik
I'm not holding my breath. I'm beginning to think that all the "new messiah" nonsense may be just that, nonsense. He's not the messiah, but he may well be the new Mesmer.
John
----------
Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Not in the primary. Too far along in the process and he appeals to the left wing of the base. It hurts him in the general where he is losing independents hand over fist.
Semper Fi
it will only stick if we shame the media into callinng him on it. the press showed no interest in even questioning him until SNL exposed the absurdity and they can't be allowed to forget it.
Either, Hillary, Bill, both or a crony and nothing stuck. Heck we couldn't even get enough mud to stick to Hillary to prevent her election in New York. This even after the pardon scandals and the renting out of the Lincoln Bedroom.
This is my worry with this election. Either way I get a twisty feeling in my stomach that we will have another 8 years of a president feelgood that the press will take a bullet for.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
play dead, or sit up and beg -- whatever either Obama or Hillary tell them to do. If elected we can expect the Dem to do no wrong. If McCain wins we can expect him to become a right-wing boob!
Thats the good thing about the main street media - they don't realize how far out of touch they are with most americans. nobody likes their leaders wearing a crown, and the more they deify obama, the more people begin to resent him. thats the one thing hillary has going - everybody already hates her.
Obama, yes. Clinton, no.
of the alternative media; however, during the Clinton years, the alternative media was not nearly as robust as it is now. I do think there is enough power in the alternative media to disallow covering up for Obama or Clinton. The alternative media is powerful enough to bring up issues like this with Obama, or Clinton, & force the MSM to answer in some way. It doesn't mean that the MSM will not cover - it simply will not be as effective as it was in the 1990s.
Back up to the foreground. Instead of issues being dropped after they run through the media cycle, they can be recycled back to the forefront as new information/news comes through. So, the current events can be looked at more closely in light of past occurrences.
Erik
Reading Obama's answers to the questions on that form, they sound just like the weighted average of the answers that you might have expected if all the law professors at liberal schools in Chicago filled out the form for him...and for themselves...
...Gee, I wonder how he became the Democratic Party's nominee for President?
Prohibit manufacture and sale of handguns? YES
Ban assault weapons? YES
Mandatory waiting periods and background checks? YES
Too bad there weren't more questions on the form. I would have loved to have had him on record more extensively, particularly after his recent massage of the answer about the right to bear arms existing in the 2nd Amendment. Obama knows that you can say that you think it does as a politician but as a lawyer working to support Charles Schumer as he "hammer[s] guns on the anvil of a relentless legislative strategy" you can strangle that right completely out from under people.
Between the gun-banning answers and the death-penalty opposition and the union and labor answers, why, he sounds just like he would have made a great professor at DePaul University College of Law if he hadn't been busy running for the Illinois Legislature...he would have agreed 100% with my former boss on virtually everything on that form -- they would have gotten along swimmingly -- and that goes for about 98% of the rest of the faculty there.
Of course, because they were much more interested in getting Barack Obama elected to the Senate and then to the Presidency, they never would have extended the offer unless he had decided not to become President with their help...
And people wonder why Bill and Hillary are so angry...
I was intrigued by his opposition to "any type" of discrimination.
But . . .
"I do not think there is any place . . . for any type of discrimination in the hiring and promoting of public employees. . . . I am a strong supporter of affirmative action programs that ensure qualified minorities, women, and gays and lesbians are actively recruited and supported . . .."
He also wants an "equal pay" scale for jobs of "comparable worth."
So, paying people more than the market place thinks they are worth is not discrimination, so long as it only favors qualified minorities, women, gays, and lesbians.
Steve Willis
Professor of Law
University of Florida College of Law
of the Rollins Band.
We seem to have a theme developing on the left, no?
Fighting for conservatism one day at a time.
It really does fit those two oh-so-well.
Fighting for conservatism one day at a time.
I know one guy that President Obama would nominate to the Supreme Court: His (liberal) legal adviser, Cass Sunstein.
Cass Sunstein is a law professor at Harvard and the University of Chicago. He used to be a law clerk for the late Thurgood Marshall, back when Marshall was on the Supreme Court. Reportedly, he has been dating Samantha Power, who has been one of Obama's foreign policy advisers.
And he is very much a liberal.
Great- so a few thousand of us know about this issue. How is that going to change an election where the media covers for Obamessiah and will never publish stories about this?
Unless someone is familiar with a GOP ad campaign that is competent enought to disseminate all of this into the consciousness of the American people- this is useless.
Obama is Jimmy Carter- only without the sweater.
But on the issue of the death penalty (and homosexual marriage), the solution to the difference between his "positions" he declares and his actual positions in terms of who he nominates to the bench will be starkly clear, i.e. only nominate anti-death penalty and pro-homosexual marriage judges.
We'll see what happens with the 2nd Amendment case before the Court now, but, again, all Obama nominees will hold his true position on gun ownership, i.e. anti-2nd Amendment.
Same with abortion, of course.
The loon left has realized that on the issue of the death penalty, homosexual "rights", abortion-on-demand and gun ownership it is politically expedient to proclaim moderate/conservative positions. But, and this is why this election is so important, they will reflect their true stances in terms of the Judges they nominate.