This is the “change” the left is looking for?
First we have Mr. Obama who promised, in writing, to take only public financing for his election campaign and then challenged his Republican opponent to do the same….but when it looks like he can make more money foregoing this option he breaks his word. The WaPo is not amused:
…Pardon the sarcasm. But given Mr. Obama’s earlier pledge to “aggressively pursue” an agreement with the Republican nominee to accept public financing, his effort to cloak his broken promise in the smug mantle of selfless dedication to the public good is a little hard to take. “It’s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections,” Mr. Obama said in a video message to supporters.
Mr. Obama didn’t mention his previous proposal to take public financing if the Republican nominee agreed to do the same — the one for which he received heaps of praise from campaign finance reform advocates such as Mr. Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, and others, including us. He didn’t mention, as he told the Federal Election Commission last year in seeking to preserve the option, that “Congress concluded some thirty years ago that the public funding alternative . . . would serve core purposes in the public interest: limiting the escalation of campaign spending and the associated pressures on candidates to raise, at the expense of time devoted to public dialogue, ever vaster sums of money.”
Instead, he cast his abandonment of the system as a bold good-government move. “This is our moment, and our country is depending on us,” he said. “So join me, and declare your independence from this broken system and let’s build the first general election campaign that’s truly funded by the American people.” Sure, and if the Founding Fathers were around today, they’d have bundlers, too.
(Check out Politico’s excellent guide to Obama’s broken promise.)
Once it became clear he could outraise his opponent through private financing he chose to break his word. Sounds like change to me huh?
He then caves on FISA, which has seriously disappointed the lefties.
Time and again, in his debates with Hillary, and now with John McCain, his whole debate posture on national security issues was centered on the idea that he could challenge and change what it means to talk “tough.” His candidacy has long seemed to embody a conviction that Democrats can win arguments with Republicans about national security — that if Dems stick to a set of core principles, and forcefully argue for them without blinking, they can and will persuade people that, simply put, they are right and Republicans are wrong.
Obama has done this already in this general election — repeatedly. And no doubt he will do it again and again and again in the months ahead.
To be clear, I’m not even talking about whether opposing this would or wouldn’t have carried political peril. It really doesn’t matter. Because if there were ever anything that would have tested his operating premise throughout this campaign — that you can win arguments with Republicans about national security — it was this legislation. If ever there were anything that deserved to test this premise, it was this legislation.
And this time, he abandoned that premise.
Abandon is a word we hear quite often with Obama’s name don’t we? “Abandon Wright,” “Abandon Trinity Church,” “Abandon Palestine,” “Abandon his promise to sit down with Iran,” and so on.
I’m feeling the change already. Can ya feel it?
Oh, but the change isn’t only Obama’s doing. There are other Democrats who give me that “change” feeling:
The Senate Ethics Committee is beginning an initial investigation into whether Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) got preferential mortgage rates from Countrywide Financial Corp., even as the two senators are taking decidedly different approaches to dealing with the revelations.
Senate Ethics Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) confirmed today to The Washington Post’s Paul Kane that her panel had received an official complaint against Dodd and Conrad, a step which under Senate rules automatically triggers a preliminary inquiry into the matter. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wrote to both the House and Senate ethics panels last week asking for investigations.
Senator Dodd is the chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. The same committee that ramrodded through Congress a 300 billion dollar, taxpayer funded, bailout of Countrywide and other banks that got us into this subprime mess.
So he got a $75,000 dollar savings on his loans and then took the lead in digging that bank out of a very large hole.
I would call that a bribe….but hey, in a party that still has Freezer Jefferson representing citizens what can ya expect?
Ch-ch-change!
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