Townhall: Obama Runs from Liberal Record in Debate By Amanda Carpenter
The other vote Obama discussed was to create an independent “Senate Office of Public Integrity” to handle complaints against senators and would work with the existing Senate Ethics Committee. Obama voted “yes.” Clinton voted “no.”
“According to the National Journal, that position is a liberal position,” said Obama regarding his vote to create the replicate office. “Now, I don’t think that’s a liberal position. I think there are a lot of Republicans and a lot of independents who would like to make sure ethics investigations are not conducted by the people being potentially investigated. So the categories don’t make sense.”
One wonders why Obama is sprinting from the label “liberal,” especially considering that he is one. Why be afraid of the votes you cast? Of the beliefs which inspired those votes?
Some of the other votes the National Journal ranked Obama on that he did not mention included his votes: to support tax hikes, to require a study of global warming effects for federal water projects, to allow union organizers to bypass secret balloting processes to organize workplaces, to mandate increased vehicle fuel efficiency standards, permit “sanctuary city” policies, against making English the official language of the United States, against defining a fetus as an “unborn child,” against renewing President Bush’s terrorist monitoring program, to support voting rights for the District of Columbia and to cut funding and withdraw troops from Iraq according to a set date.
So what exactly did the National Journal do?
A panel of National Journal editors and reporters initially compiled a list of 216 key congressional roll-call votes for 2007 — 107 votes for the Senate and 109 for the House — and classified them as relating to economic, social, or foreign policy
And what did it conclude?
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal’s 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.
And John McCain?
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the only other senator whose presidential candidacy survived the initial round of primaries and caucuses this year, did not vote frequently enough in 2007 to draw a composite score. He missed more than half of the votes in both the economic and foreign-policy categories.
I’m sure the folks in Arizona are thrilled with that.
Asked whether the liberal ranking could be used against Obama in the campaign, [campaign spokeswoman Jen] Psaki said that voters appreciate that he is up front about his positions on issues, even if those positions don’t line up with their own. “Part of the reason he’s appealing to some Republicans and independents is, he has that authenticity,” she said. “He’s very clear from the beginning that we can’t do this alone and we need to work across party lines and focus more on uniting than on dividing.”
“Authenticity”?
And this babble about “work across party lines” and “uniting” is making me ill. Can we cease with the BS? If elected, Obama will work toward a Marxist-redistribute-the-wealth-surrender-in-Iraq agenda while voting with his party 96.5% of the time. When do liberals EVER comprise their beliefs or backstab their own? Unlike some other people.
I guess none of that matters when you’re trying to hoodwink the nation about your record. Just don’t expect the mainstream media to reveal any of this. They too busy electing a President.
Filed under: Barack Obama / The Messiah, John McCain/Sarah Palin , Barack Obama / The Messiah, John McCain/Sarah Palin, National Journal
