He did so in a nationally televised debate. But you see, the majority of Americans are to damn dumb to realize the significance of a man who continually changes his position to suit his audience. That's just the way it is.
And we -- we are spending billions of dollars on missile defense. And I actually believe that we need missile defense, because of Iran and North Korea and the potential for them to obtain or to launch nuclear weapons, but I also believe that, when we are only spending a few hundred million dollars on nuclear proliferation, then we're making a mistake.
I guess. At least that's what this video implies. Initially, Obama said we shouldn't tap the strategic oil reserves unless there is a "genuine emergency". Now he says we should sell 70 million barrels of the oil. What happened Obama? What's the emergency? Oh, I get it. You're dropping in the polls like a rock. That's the emergency.
THE INITIAL MEDIA coverage of Barack Obama's visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama's own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq's principal political leaders actually support his strategy.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of the dramatic turnaround in U.S. fortunes, "does not want a timetable," Mr. Obama reported with welcome candor during a news conference yesterday. In an interview with ABC, he explained that "there are deep concerns about . . . a timetable that doesn't take into account what [American commanders] anticipate might be some sort of change in conditions."
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki's timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama's. More significant, it would be "a timetable which Iraqis set" -- not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks. As Mr. Obama put it, Mr. Maliki "wants some flexibility in terms of how that's carried out." ad_icon
Other Iraqi leaders were more directly critical. As Mr. Obama acknowledged, Sunni leaders in Anbar province told him that American troops are essential to maintaining the peace among Iraq's rival sects and said they were worried about a rapid drawdown.
Mr. Obama's response is that, as president, he would have to weigh Iraq's needs against those of Afghanistan and the U.S. economy. He says that because Iraq is "a distraction" from more important problems, U.S. resources devoted to it must be curtailed. Yet he also says his aim is to "succeed in leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can take responsibility for its own future." What if Gen. Petraeus and Iraqi leaders are right that this goal is not consistent with a 16-month timetable? Will Iraq be written off because Mr. Obama does not consider it important enough -- or will the strategy be altered?
Arguably, Mr. Obama has given himself the flexibility to adopt either course. Yesterday he denied being "so rigid and stubborn that I ignore anything that happens during the course of the 16 months," though this would be more reassuring if Mr. Obama were not rigidly and stubbornly maintaining his opposition to the successful "surge" of the past 16 months. He also pointed out that he had "deliberately avoided providing a particular number" for the residual force of Americans he says would be left behind.
Yet Mr. Obama's account of his strategic vision remains eccentric. He insists that Afghanistan is "the central front" for the United States, along with the border areas of Pakistan. But there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered. While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves. If Mr. Obama's antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.
Obama is going to vote for the FISA bill he previously swore to filibuster.
The Senate is finally expected to wrap up the bill updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act today, which includes the controversial provision of retroactive immunity for telecom companies facing lawsuit. While the bill splits Democrats, it's expected to pass with united Republican support.
Obama will be back for today's vote and has said he'll support final passage.
Strickland also notes Obama's seeming reversal on FISA: In December of last year, Obama's office said in a written statement, "Senator Obama unequivocally opposes giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies... granting such immunity undermines the constitutional protections Americans trust the Congress to protect. Senator Obama supports a filibuster [blocking] of this bill, and strongly urges others to do the same."
This Obama two-step has the freakshows at the Daily Kos hopping mad.
F*** the Democrats! by CT yanqui Wed Jul 09, 2008 at 08:30:27 AM PDT F*** Reid, F*** Pelosi, F*** Hoyer, F***Rockefeller, and , yes, F*** Obama. F*** ‘em all!
CT yanqui's diary :: :: After 2 years, the Dems have given Bush everything he wanted, from a trillion dollars for Iraq, to the destruction of the Constitution. Now Bush walks away. He gets away with murder, war crimes, and treason. Things will be worse under McCain? They won’t, because they already are. If this FISA vote goes through, I am closing my checkbook and resigning from the Democratic Party after 45 years. I had high hopes in 2006, and after Obama’s nomination, but it is now clear that the Democrats are congenital cowards. Nothing is going to change.
Nothing is going to change"? But but Obama...He's different...No...Not really...But he really had y'all going there for a while.
In three different appearances over the last two days, David Axelrod, Susan Rice, and Claire McCaskill all offered competing visions of Obama’s policy on Iraq. First, we have Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, insisting that his January 2007 plan was still operative yesterday:
David Axelrod: John, with all due respect, on this, your knowledge doesn’t extend far enough. The fact is that, Senator Obama introduced a plan in the United States Senate in January of 2007 that called for a phased withdrawal, with benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet, that called for strategic pauses, based on the progress on these benchmarks, and advice on the commanders on the ground and he’s always said that he would listen to the advice of commanders on the ground, that that would factor into his thinking. He’s also said we have to be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. So he’s been very consistent on this point.
However, on the same day, Senator Claire McCaskill — Obama’s campaign co-chair — told MS-NBC that advice on the ground wouldn’t deflect Obama from his commitment to withdraw troops or change his plans at all:
Monica Novotny: In this week’s New Yorker, George Packer writes about Obama’s original withdrawal plan in the context of what we’re now seeing as a relative stabilization in parts of Iraq. He writes about Obama, ‘He doubtless realizes that his original plan, if implemented now, could revive the badly wounded al Qaeda in Iraq, re-energize the Sunni insurgency, embolden Moqtada al-Sadr to recoup his militia’s recent losses to the Iraqi Army, and return the central government to a state of collapse. The question is whether Obama will publicly change course before November.’ Will he?
Sen. McCaskill: No. He will not.
The day before, Obama’s foreign-policy adviser Susan Rice insisted that Obama will be flexible and change direction if conditions on the ground warrant it:
He has said that the best military advice he’s received leads us to believe that we can safely withdraw our forces at the pace of one to two combat brigades per month, and depending on the number of combat brigades he inherits, our best estimate is that that could be accomplished in roughly 16 months. That’s not a deadline. That’s a timetable, and obviously if Senator Obama has said on numerous occasions, he will listen to his commanders on the ground, he will follow and heed their advice as he decides how at the strategic level we must proceed. So he will do this very carefully and responsibly as he always said but he will do it.
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