I've been critical of Barack Obama and the Democrats, and I will be so again. I don't think anyone doubts this.
But this time, I am going to defend him.
I saw a completely ridiculous story on CNN last weekend that accused Obama of "dirty politics" in Illinois. I hate Media Matters -- basically, it exists to twist the truth in favor of liberals -- but it has the video so I'll link to it (and a transcript is on CNN).
CNN reporter Drew Griffin's claims boil down to, simply, that Obama committed "bare-knuckle" tactics by checking his opponents' ballot signatures, to make sure they were legal. His opponents' signatures were not legal, so they didn't get on the ballot, and he did, and won an unopposed race.
So Obama is "dirty" according to CNN because he not only followed the law while his opponents broke the law, but because he helped catch his opponents breaking the law.
CNN has a very odd definition of "dirty."
Griffin responded, "I know there are rules. But let me be real ... the guy that registered 150,000 voters, the all-inclusive candidate, 'let everybody have their vote,' makes sure he's the only guy on the ballot in 1996."
I can tell Griffin is trying to contrast Obama's past actions and statements for getting broad involvement in the political process with what he did in 1996, but for the life of me, I cannot see any contrast at all. Yes, register 150,000 voters ... legally. Yes, include everyone ... who is a legal citizen and legally registered voter. Yes, let everybody who is a legal voter have their legally cast vote. Those are all good things and not in any way conflicting with making sure his opponents followed the law in 1996.
Actually, now that I think about it, it seems to me that Griffin simply assumed that Obama was in favor of breaking the law. Since his only actual complaint about Obama in 1996 is that he upheld the law, the only way I can see a contrast is if he assumes that Obama is in favor of registering people illegally, of including voters illegally, and of allowing people to vote illegally.
This reporter obviously does not understand that when election laws are violated, it disenfranchises legal voters. Obama should be applauded for helping to uphold the law, not called "dirty" for it.
I just hope Obama and the Democrats doesn't attack any Republicans for upholding election law this year, as they often have in the past.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
Posted by pudge at June 03, 2008 10:49 PM | Email ThisAll the news that's fit to manufacture.
One thing I noted in the CNN story was that one of the laws used was that the signature was printed instead of in cursive and that is what made the signature invalid.
It seems to me that at least that one law is a bit over the top. So yes he what he did was leagal, but as someone who claims to be all inclusive it seems to me that he disenfrachised the voice of some over their lack of cursive.
Hinton, yes Obama was part of ACORN back in 1992. It turns out his community organizer days consisted of training ACRON's Project Vote workers in 1992.
Posted by: TrueSoldier on June 4, 2008 03:41 AMGotta wonder how Obama would have reacted had someone challenged the signatures on those newly registered voters in mostly poorer, less educated black neighborhoods back then. Then again, no, I don't need to wonder....I know.
Barack Obama/Eddie Haskell 2008
Posted by: Rick D. on June 4, 2008 05:42 AMhttp://www.campaigncola.com/
Posted by: CampaignCola on June 4, 2008 06:52 AMThey only read what's on the telepromter in front of them and if it's not printed there, then they can't make an opinion to save their soul. So yes, they are editorializing to the point that it's someone else's viewpoint.
Posted by: Ken on June 4, 2008 07:23 AMYou quoted Askia in your post, but EVEN ASKIA says that he believes most of his signatures were forged (see the MM link I provided).
And I couldn't care less about cursive vs. printed. What are we, Democrats, who feel that rules and laws don't matter if we don't like them?
Some Democrats may feel the above is a cheap shot, but I don't. A marked difference, to me, between the Ds and Rs is that Ds do not believe we are a nation of laws. Rs do -- or should -- believe that laws should be upheld because this is the only way to protect rights in the long run, because the law is the mechanism we use to protect rights. Hence Democratic policy is to ignore the 10th Amendment because they simply don't like it, for example, and this in turn diminishes our right to self-government.
For whatever reason the law said cursive is not allowed, so it is not allowed. End of story there, as far as I am concerned.
Posted by: pudge on June 4, 2008 07:49 AMLet me clarify my point on cursive vs. printed. I said that the law seems over the top. I guess what I should have said is that the law seems over the top and should be changed, not that Obama broke the law. It just seems like a procedural thing such as cursive vs. printed should not be a law. If Obama took advantage of it he had every right to, but it does nto sound to me like he was all inclusive as he claims to be. I hope that clarification helps.
Posted by: TrueSoldier on June 4, 2008 08:00 AMFWIW, McCain has been working on increased gov't transparency since long before Obama got there. Yes, it should be bipartisan, but if you were trying to imply it: no, it is not Obama's issue. :-) (And did Obama ever disclose his 2005-2006 earmark requests? Last I saw, he had not.)
Posted by: pudge on June 4, 2008 08:04 AM"it seems to me that he disenfrachised the voice of some over their lack of cursive."
But if you gave an illegal signature, then I cannot see that as disenfranchisement on the part of Obama. Maybe you could argue that the LAW disenfranchised them, but I cannot see an argument that Obama did so by enforcing the law.
Whatever, a minor quibble. I don't care enough about it to keep discussing it. :-)
Posted by: pudge on June 4, 2008 08:10 AMHm. I tried to use the Wayback Machine to find out WHEN that file was posted (do you know?), but Obama's web site blocks access to archive.org. See for yourself. He only blocks his "answercenter" site, not his main web site. It appears to me that Obama wants to be able to change his answers without a record of it happening, and doesn't put dates up so we can't say "oh, you only put that up after such-and-such happened." So much for transparency, eh? :-)
As to the pledge: oh, come on. Pledges are meaningless. What matters are ACTIONS. For years McCain wouldn't sign Grover Norquist's no-tax-increase pledge, and yet McCain has never voted for a tax increase. And McCain has always supported transparency.
Posted by: pudge on June 4, 2008 09:32 AMHe Ranks in the top third in U.S. Senators ordering pork, but all the sudden has this epiphany about restricting earmarks? Hmmmm
Posted by: Rick D. on June 4, 2008 09:40 AMI'm not saying this as absolute fact in the Sen. Obama 1996 case, but it's a very real possibility. There have been other justifiable reasons to shut down intentionally falsified electoral documents. I just don't know if I can say one way or the other.
It is, however, and interesting tid-bit.
Yes, it is possible, but as far as I am concerned it is not worth even discussing without actual evidence backing it up.
Posted by: pudge on June 4, 2008 10:36 AMI think this might have been the narrative CNN was trying to report to.
But I prefer reporting based on facts, not on supporting narratives.
Posted by: pudge on June 4, 2008 10:55 AMHe released his earlier earmark list on March 13, 2008 (re: CNN News Ticker).
I can't get to the web archive page right now (blocked from my current location). Does it report that the site is blocked or could it be that the content has a "no-cache" header and thus is not saved by the site? Being a cgi scripted page (most likely drawing information from a database) that is dynamically generated, it may have been set up to tell other sites not to cache. I am not familiar with the web archive site you quoted to know how they actually work with regards to dynamic content. I would agree with you, however, Obama's webmasters, especially people like Chris Hughes, who founded Facebook, should be familiar enough with web technology to know this. The fact that the other parts of the site are archived and this part isn't is interesting (from a web standpoint).
Posted by: tc on June 4, 2008 11:35 AMAs to archive.org, Obama's answercenter site explicitly blocks all crawlers (see http://answercenter.barackobama.com/robots.txt).
Yes, this is sometimes done because of dynamically generated content -- I work for Slashdot and know this all too well -- but first, most of the content on answercenter is not any more dynamic than a static site, and second, I frankly believe there is a higher obligation here that he should meet. He is running for President, after all. If I were running the site, I'd have done whatever it takes to make sure that information is properly indexed and archived, simply BECAUSE of the need for openness.
It could just be carelessness. Let's hope so.
Posted by: pudge on June 4, 2008 11:59 AMAlso, it should be mentioned that all earmarks are not equal. They appear to also include requests for legitimate highway/transportation work along with "pork". I believe one of you here at SP (might have been you), had a post on this awhile back.
So yes, these totals don't really mean anything. As long as his earmarks are public, that is all I care about. Then if specific earmarks are a problem, we can look at them individually.
Posted by: pudge on June 4, 2008 12:58 PMAnd as Pudge pointed out, in the interest of transparency, perhaps you can do a comparison between the two presidential candidates inre: earmarks ordered and in turn received.
So much for that strawman.
Posted by: Rick D. on June 4, 2008 01:02 PMYou could have a $10m earmark for new socks for the troops in Iraq, and a $10m earmark for studying the mating habits of squirrels. While you could think all earmarks are bad, not all earmarks are actually equal.
So I really don't care about comparisons of dollar figures. The specifics are what matter. So, Obama has released his earmarks: look through them and find something negative! :-)
Posted by: pudge on June 4, 2008 01:55 PMWith regards to the Taxpayers for Common Sense list, here is an explanation of what they track in their database. I can't determine by that however if the totals in the spreadsheet are what was requested or received. I think they are what was requested.
As for position on earmarks, I grew up in Wisconsin during the time when William Proxmire (Golden Fleece Award creator), so I would have to state my viewpoint would be in tune with McCain on this issue. However, I would agree with Pudge that earmarks, in themselves, aren't necessarily good or bad as long as it is transparent who is promoting what and what each request contains. My own preference would be to not fund the bad projects, period, and to fund the good projects through normal department budget channels. It may speak to the overall bureaucracy, however, to the fact that states don't have good channels to propose projects and rely on the earmark process. From my work in Department of Navy (as civilian), I can tell you the best process is for the organizations to request their needs to the respective subcommittees to hold hearings and not have the requests come from outside in. On the opposite viewpoint however, it also helps to have a congressman (in the case of the Shipyard, Norm Dicks) that has some clout with appropriations. It also works against you when the local congressman is in minority, like was the case when Trent Lott drove through "earmarks" for ships to be built in Mississippi that the Navy didn't want and which took away public shipyard maintenance dollars from the Navy.
Posted by: tc on June 4, 2008 02:02 PMI agree not all earmarks are bad and persuing Obama's list they don't seem overly absurd until you start realizing that these requests from the Federal government are for State institutions and infrasctructures that should be getting weened off the Federal Government teat anyway. I'm a big believer in City, State, County and then.........Federal.
Obama calls on the same website for:
Barack Obama's Plan
Restore Fiscal Discipline to Washington
Reinstate PAYGO Rules: Obama believes that a critical step in restoring fiscal discipline is enforcing pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) budgeting rules which require new spending commitments or tax changes to be paid for by cuts to other programs or new revenue.
He calls for this on a National level, but ignores the same rules as it applies to his state of Illinois.
Are we to assume because John McCain does not call for any ($0.00) Federal earmarks for his state of Arizona that it is not in need of or want the same funding requests from the Federal government that other states are afforded even though they contain the same State Institutions and infrasctructure?
Earmarks are little more than a State welfare system by which they call on federal monies to solve problems which are by and large local,county and state responsibilities.
I can assure you that if the individual states (i.e. the local taxpayers) were paying for the pet projects of their local Senator's and not lost in the fog of the Federal system, you would have taxpayers with pitchforks at their door to take the payment out in the form of their hide. This kills two birds with one stone.......reduces the amount of "Wasteful Pork" on the federal level and holds politicians accountable for their actions or they get thrown out on their ear.
to use tc's example of Lott's outrageous spending.....You can't vote him out of office if you're a U.S. taxpayer not in the state of Misssissippi, but you're paying for it nonetheless. The people that can vote him out won't because he secured money that benefited them. See where this cycle takes us? Essentially, on some level it really is a taxation without true representation because it's out of your hands.
Pay as you Go CAN/SHOULD work on all levels of government, not just the Federal
I know this is somewhat of a rambling answer, but I think you'll be able to get the gist of what I'm saying.
Posted by: Rick D. on June 4, 2008 05:59 PMLast year Sen. Barack Obama, submitted a laundry list of federal funding requests, known as earmarks, to the Senate Appropriations Committee: 112 earmarks totaling more than $330 million in taxpayer funds.
But that was last year.
This year, as the Senate funding request deadline approaches and the final primaries of the Democratic nomination process draw near, Obama's staff told CNN the junior senator from Illinois will request no earmarks for fiscal year 2009.
.....Well, I guess that would qualify as "CHANGE", but any chance I can get a refund for the previous 3 years, Senator?
Posted by: Rick D. on June 4, 2008 09:46 PMHowever, and a big however, it also meant that the state taxpayers had to pony up more of their own money for projects and didn't really get its fair cut of the tax dollars it sent to the federal government. So, one aspect of it is if others are doing it, then their is a fairness issue.
A second area I would disagree with your response is the fact that some of these earmarks do go to federal efforts at the state level. For example, some go to US Highway and Interstate construction. The states should not have to pay for this work. It also, by the way, should be part of the Transportation budget and not have to be funded via earmarks. Also, I know that federal facilities, like the Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, are recepients of earmark money. There was some controversy a few years ago when the Navy wanted to build the new pool and recreation facility at the Shipyard (really Naval Base Bremerton, at that point). It was a definate need for MWR for the Sailors. The old pool and gym facility was undersized for the Naval Station Operations. Yet, some decried this as "pork." They were stating that the Bremerton sailors could go to Bangor's facilities.
In an ideal world, these budget requests should go through the appropriate committee, instead of using earmarks. Until then, transparency of earmarks should be the minimum standard, so that the public, itself, can review the worthiness of the requests.
Posted by: tc on June 5, 2008 09:13 AMHowever, if you look at Obama's (and the other Pork addicted Senators) list of earmarks, the majority certainly didn't meet that criteria, though for the most part his sounded fairly legitimate for the betterment of his state. As I said above, Obama got nearly 1/3 billion dollars to benefit his state while McCain secured Zero dollars for his state. Obama can't have it both ways by decrying federal spending and then feeding at the trough by requesting hundreds of millions of dollars from it. Also, as I implied at 38, How come no earmarks for this coming year for Illinois? If they don't need money now, did they really need it then?
If he's going to be a different kind of politician as he's proclaiming, he'll need to start walking the talk, cuz everything I've seen so far has been a contradiction.
Posted by: Rick D. on June 5, 2008 10:05 AMI disagree, there was a difference in Reagan's victory in 1980 and Bush's 2nd term victory.
Posted by: Mike Barer on June 5, 2008 11:24 AM