Saturday, January 05, 2008

Obama's victory speech


Great speech.

On another note, I'm starting to get a little annoyed at some of the liberals with the biggest microphones. Both Kos and Paul Krugman have been beating the drum that Obama uses right wing talking points for several months now. Krugman, in fact, has been so relentless in his attacks that, at times, I wonder if he's committed to supporting Clinton or Edwards but isn't willing to come out and say it lest he lose the appearance of objectivity. Kos and Atrios, meanwhile, brutalized Obama for having the audacity to bring up Social Security as a problem he would try to fix because the Democratic grass/netroots had to fight back privatization so hard (of course, Obama would have a Democratic House and Democratic Senate, which I'm pretty sure isn't going to opt for private accounts). Yet when Clinton rebutted Obama's suggestion to fix Social Security by eliminating the payroll tax cap with "Obama wants a trillion-dollar tax hike on the middle class" (the payroll tax cap sits at $97,000/year, an income level only surpassed by some 6% of the population; the US median income in 2006 was $44,451/year), where was the outrage? When Hillary Clinton answered Obama's proclamation that he wouldn't use nuclear weapons against Pakistan (a nuclear nation, need I remind you) with "I would keep all options on the table," where were the framing police?

So today I read this at Huffington Post:
Upon her arrival in New Hampshire this morning, Hillary Clinton signaled that she intends to play on Obama's as yet unexploited political weaknesses: "Who will be able to stand up to the Republican attack machine?" she asked at an appearance in Nashua.

Hillary's aides point to Obama's extremely progressive record as a community organizer, state senator and candidate for Congress, his alliances with "left-wing" intellectuals in Chicago's Hyde Park community, and his liberal voting record on criminal defendants' rights as subjects for examination.

Along the same lines, ABC reported that Clinton aides gave the network various examples, of Obama's controversial stands. The aides cited Obama's past assertion that he would support ending mandatory minimum sentences for federal crimes, pointing to a 2004 statement at an NAACP-sponsored debate: "Mandatory minimums take too much discretion away from judges."

Kos highlighted it, and good on him for it, but here was his comment:
One does get the sense that Hillary's operation is just throwing mud against the wall to see what will stick. Obama needs the independent vote in NH, and the Clinton campaign is obviously trying to scare them away from Obama.

Yeah, 'cuz it's not like she was trying to make Obama look like a naive, lefty peacenik fraking months ago.

And are we going to hear any outrage from Krugman?

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