Trying To Defend The Indefensible

The left, led by the Washington Post, is complaining that the attack on Obama for his decision not to visit wounded soldiers at the Landstuhl RMC is unjustified. They clearly do not understand that there is a bright line here, and however you try and spin it or justify it, Obama displayed extremely poor judgment and lack of concern by crossing it.
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Landstuhl RMC is where the U.S. military transfers its seriously wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama was scheduled to visit the wounded soldiers there. The military contacted Obama's staff, letting them know that he was welcome, but that his "army" of reporters and staff were not, including one of his campaign advisors who was also a retired AF General. Obama then chose not to attend, putting the best possible spin on it - that he did so out of concern for the troops.

Lynne Sweet at the Chicago Sun Times asked Obama for a clarification which she believes makes Obama's decision justifiable.

Q. Can you clear up the controversy about visiting the troops in Germany, the Pentagon said you were more welcome to come but you cant bring the media and were not allowed to bring campaign staff other than that you are more than welcome anytime, inaudible, we have gotten a few conflicting claims...

OBAMA: The staff was working this so I don't know each and every detail but here is what I understand happened. We had scheduled to go, we had no problem at all in leaving, we always leave press and staff off that is why we left it off the schedule. We were treating it in the same way we treat a visit to Walter Reed which I was able to do a few weeks ago without any fanfare whatsoever. I was going to be accompanied by one of my advisors, former military officer. And we got notice that he would be treated as a campaign person and it would therefore be perceived as political because he had endorsed my candidacy but he wasn't on the senate staff.

That triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be perceived as political and the last thing that I want to do is have injured soldiers and the staff at these wonderful institutions having to sort through whether this is political or not or get caught in the crossfire between campaigns. So rather than go forward and potentially get caught up in what might have been considered a political controversy of some sort what we decided was that we not make a visit and instead I would call some of the troops that were that. So that essentially would be the extent of the story.

Ms. Sweet, like the Washington Post and like Obama, simply does not get it.

Some things are apolitical. Visiting soldiers who are severely wounded is one of them. It is never inappropriate. It should never be weighed on the scales of political expediency.

Mr. Obama's ostensible concern for the staff having to sort through "whether this is political or not" is pure bull. His campaign was already told that he personally would be welcome, minus his entourage. His further reasoning that the troops "might get caught up in the crossfire between the campaigns" is equally baseless and even more inexplicable. Those troops at Landstuhl now know two things. Obama visited Germany to speak before 200,000 screaming Euro-lefties, but then did not make the visit over to the quieter section of Germany where they lie in beds convalescing from attacks by enemies of our country. As an aside, regardless of what anyone thinks of McCain, is it possible to envisage him criticizing Obama for visiting our wounded soldiers personally?

Obama made a decision. It was a wrong one. Apologists can spin this one any way they want to, but Obama's decision not to visit our troops crossed a bright line.

I wrote yesterday, in response to a different matter, "I could think of no man less qualified to be commander in chief than Obama. That belief is far from predicated on his lack of any military experience. It seems clear that his decision making will be guided by political expediency rather than principle. It seems clear that his decision making will always prioritize the political over military necessity or force protection. . . ." Obama's decision not to visit our wounded soldiers without press and staff falls completely in line with my assessment. No matter how anyone spins it, it showed his very poor judgement.

Let's give the former CSM of Landstuhl RMC, Craig Layton, the last word on this matter:

"Having spent two years as the Command Sergeant Major at Landstuhl Hospital, I am always grateful for the attention that facility receives from members of Congress. There is no more important work done by the United States Army than to care for those who have been wounded in the service our country. While Americans troops remain engaged in two hot wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a steady stream of casualties to the hospital, and a steady stream of visitors who wish to meet with those troops and thank them for their service.

"Senator Obama has explained his decision to cancel a scheduled visit there by blaming the military, which would not allow one of his political advisers to join him in a tour of the facility. Why Senator Obama felt he needed an adviser with him to visit U.S. troops is unclear, but if Senator Obama isn't comfortable meeting wounded American troops without his entourage, perhaps he does not have the experience necessary to serve as commander in chief."

(H/T Gateway Pundit)

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The Chameleon Candidate & Mr. Dionne's Confusion

E.J. Dionne, the leftist aparatchik who doles out his pablum at the Washington Post, is unable to distinguish principle from expediency, nor cynical opportunism from reacting to changed circumstances. Nonetheless, he indadvertently gives us the perfect moniker for Obama, a man who has flipped and flopped so much that he has transcended the act and now is more appropriately referred to as the Chameleon Candidate.


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Mr. Dionne's confusion about Mr. Obama is perfectly understandable. It is difficult indeed to claim any color of principle for an individual who changes those colors with the speed and seamlessness of a chameleon. This from Mr. Dionne, writing in the Washington Post today:

When a candidate calls a second news conference to say the same thing he thought he said at the first one, you know he knows he has a problem.

Thus Barack Obama's twin news conferences last week in Fargo, N.D. At his first, Obama promised to do a "thorough assessment" of his Iraq policy in his coming visit there and "continue to gather information" to "make sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable."

You might ask: What's wrong with that? A commander in chief willing to adjust his view to facts and realities should be a refreshing idea.

But when news reports suggested Obama was backing away from his commitment to withdrawing troops from Iraq in 16 months, Obama's lieutenants no doubt heard echoes of those cries of "flip-flop" that rocked the 2004 Republican National Convention and proved devastating to John Kerry.

So out Obama came again to reiterate his timeline. "Apparently, I wasn't clear enough this morning on my position with respect to the war in Iraq," he said. "I intend to end this war. My first day in office I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war -- responsibly, deliberately, but decisively."

The unsteady moment suggested that Obama has not figured out how to slip the trap John McCain's campaign is trying to set for him. As Michael Cooper and Jeff Zeleny shrewdly put it in the New York Times, Republicans want to place Obama "in the political equivalent of a double bind: painting him as impervious to the changing reality on the ground if he sticks to his plan, and as a flip-flopper if he alters it to reflect changing circumstances."

That Mr. Dionne sees this as a simple trap from the McCain campaign speaks of the depth of his confusion. The problem here is not that Obama wants to change his mind. There are few Americans outside the America hating far left who would not embrace that. Indeed, a good leader is one who remains true to his principles while maintaining flexibility to change plans to most effectively persue those principles as facts on the ground change. Mr. Obama's problem is not with a lack of flexibility, its with a lack of principles beyond his own ambition.

Obama has been embracing defeat loudly and clearly for a long time. Obama even went so far as to say that genocide would be an acceptable outcome in Iraq as opposed to staying in that country to win the war and stabilize the country. Despite clearly changing facts in Iraq, Obama has been consistent in his calls for withdrawal and consistent in his utter refusal to acknowledge both military and political success in Iraq - until now when it is expedient to do so.

Thus, when Obama gives indication that he will now "refine" his othewise crystal clear position - a position never heretofore tied to the situation on the ground - the problem he faces is larger than the issue of Iraq itself. It is not that he is reacting to a changed situation. He is clearly moving to the right because of votes. As to whether any actual principles beyond ambition are underlying that move, it is an open question and one which America needs answered. Dionne sees this as a tactical political problem and is apparently unable to discern that this is a core issue that goes to the character and judgment of a politician who is asking us to trust him with the most powerful position in the world.

To continue with Mr. Dionne:

The flip-flop charge may be of limited use to the GOP this year because McCain has changed his own positions rather promiscuously on matters such as taxes and offshore drilling. Even on Iraq, one of McCain's signature issues, the Straight Talker has shifted his emphasis.

Let's assist Mr. Dionne with some definitions.

A flip flop is a change in political positions based on pure political expediency, irrespective of the changing conditions. It is an act of opportunistic cynicsm that shows a lack of principles and an overabundance of disingenuousness and ambition. That is Obama's problem on essentially every major issue in the race, and in particular on Iraq.

The flip side of it all, if you will, is a refusal to change positions in response to significantly changing conditions. That can be either a mark of principle or a mark of a partisan. McCain's refusal to alter positions on the Iraq war when it clearly looked to cost him his primary bid was clearly a stand on principal. To call McCain's changed position on off-shore drilling a flip flop given that we are facing an energy crisis that could well tank our economy over the next few years is a bit partisan idiocy. On the other hand, Obama's refusal to do anything on this issue that would upset the green special interests certainly suggests partisanship.

With the terms defined, the basis for Mr. Dionne's confusion becomes a bit clearer. To continue:

. . . Republicans are pressing Obama on Iraq because they know that any new moves he makes will be interpreted, fairly or not, as a change in position and that this will hurt him with two groups: the antiwar base of the Democratic Party and independent voters, many of whom are just tuning in to the campaign.

Painting Obama as a shameless shape-shifter is a way for his opponents to dull the enthusiasm (and inhibit the campaign contributions) of the war's staunchest foes. And if this image stuck, it could also hurt Obama among independents. They might vote for a hawk or a dove, but not a chameleon.

To interject here, I have to thank Dionne. The comparison of Obama to a chameleon who changes color depending on the environment of the moment could not be more apt. Indeed, Obama has changed so much so quickly, the moniker of flip flop does not do him justice, but "chameleon" candidate hits the nail on the head. And finally from Mr. Dionne:

Over the past week, Obama has been crafty in the way he has sought the political middle ground. He has emphasized his "values" and touted his patriotism, his call to service and his faith, as he did Saturday at a conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. That is quite different from backing off his core promises.

Voters accept that a president may alter the details of campaign promises. What they expect is a clear sense of the direction he will take. At the moment, voters know that John McCain is far more likely than Barack Obama to continue the war in Iraq indefinitely. Obama would be foolish to blur that distinction.

Obama's hypocrisy in touting "Christian values" and his "faith," given that it is soaked in a brand and degree of racism that should disqualify him from election as dog catcher, is beyond belief. Worse is the complicity of the MSM in burying this issue.

As to the "core promises," much like his achievements, is is possible to name one with any degree of confidence? I know of no major issue where it is possible to say that Obama has remained consistent.

[Update: Powerline also deconstructed the Dionne article, though I think they come to at least a partially erroneous conclusion. The from Powerline:

Barack Obama’s campaign grows more “refined” by the day. On issue after high profile issue – Iraq, abortion, gun control, Reverend Wright – Obama changes positions the way most people change clothes. It’s gotten so bad that even E.J. Dionne has noticed. (Dionne’s column about Obama’s flip-flopping on Iraq is called “The Stand That Obama Can’t Fudge.” Dionne thus simultaneously recognizes and excuses Obama’s fudging on everything else).

The more Obama fudges, the more he confirms his status as the true heir to Bill Clinton. As I wrote back in April:

Hillary is the nominal Clinton in this year's presidential race, but it's Obama who increasingly bears the resemblance to Bill. . . .[R]ecently it’s become clear that, like the former president, Obama is fundamentally unserious about vital issues, including even those pertaining to war and peace. For both men, issues are not at root substantive problems to be addressed on their merits, but formal matters to be navigated and, to the extent possible, manipulated. . . . How else to explain [Clinton’s] statement about how he would have voted on the first Gulf War: “I would have voted for [the war resolution] if [the vote] was close, but the Democrats had the better arguments”?

At one level, this approach to issues is post-modern -- a variation of the academic school that sees texts as infinitely malleable instruments with no fixed meaning, just waiting to be put to whatever use we find amusing. Substitute “issues” for “texts” and “expedient” for “amusing,” and you have described the essence of the Clinton-Obama political school.

Where I take issue with Powerline is their portrayal of Obama as merely a copy of Clinton. Clinton never, to my recollection, ever approached what we are seeing from Mr. Obama in sheer volume of maleable principles and daily changing positions. By comparison, Clinton was a paragon of principle.]

At any rate, as his colum makes clear, Mr. Dionne is simply unable to distinguish people acting on principles from those acting on pure ambition and expediency. That says as much about the Chamelon Candidate as it does about Mr. Dionne and his left wing compatriots.

You can find Mr. Dionne's entire article here.

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A Man Not Of His Word

The carefully crafted persona portrayed by Obama and the reality of the man are two entirely different things.

There are two kinds of leaders - those who operate upon deeply held principals and attempt to act with integrity and those for whom life's decisions are an endless and daily weighing of the expediencices. McCain, whose position on Iraq looked certain to doom his candidacy, is clearly in the former category. If you needed any clearer demonstration that Obama fully occupies the latter category, he has given it with his decision to break his promise to take public funding for the general election campaign - and then blame his ethical lapse on John McCain and Republicans. That is something even the NYT has difficulty swallowing.
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Its been clear for months that the would-be Messiah, Barack Obama, was not just an ordinary politician. But the reality has been hardly anything but an affirmation of the published by an over the top MSM. Rather, the reality is that Obama combines the naivity and poor judgment of a Jimmy Carter with the oratorical skills and disingenuousness of character of a Bill Clinton. Obama is anything but a man of his word. This from the Politico:

Obama said he'd pursue public financing "aggressively." He committed to it in a written questionnaire. He even said, repeatedly, that he would meet personally with Senator John McCain to discuss a deal.

Instead, his campaign never even asked the Republican's aides for a meeting on the subject. And Obama, both campaigns said, never asked for a face-to-face meeting with McCain.

. . . Obama's move wasn't out of character. In fact - though he has at times adopted popular reform causes - Obama has never been a traditional reformer.

He came to politics through the community organizing movement, whose radical founder, Saul Alinsky, mocked highbrow reformers, and focused instead on the acquisition and use of power, with the ends often justifying the means.

In Obama's political life, that approach has translated into pragmatism. He's kept his distance from elements of the Democratic Party that demand purity, from Washington reformers to more ideologically-motivated liberal bloggers. Instead, his campaign has sought the Kennedy mantle, modeling the candidate after a revered Democratic family not known for its scruples.

"Their campaign is brutally pragmatic," said one Democratic operative. "They have the most exciting candidate since JFK and like that operation, they have their share of talented, ambitious and at times ruthless people. Barack gets to stay above the fray, while his campaign does whatever it takes to win." . . .

Read the entire article. My problem is not with his pragmatism, nor with his opt out of public financing standing alone, but rather with his wholesale lack of integrity and utter disingenuousness in blaming his decision on McCain and Republicans, claiming that he is taking the moral highground. As Karl at Protein Wisdom opines:

It is worth noting that Team Obama had the chutzpah to blame Team McCain for the latest in the exploding number of Obama flip-flops. Ed Morrissey lays out the basic explanation for why Obama’s rationales regarding donations from lobbyists and spending by independent “527″ groups are malarkey, but it’s worth relinking to prior posts here explaining that Obama allows: “policy” and “campaign support” from well-connected Washington lobbyists; donations from their spouses; donations from well-connected state lobbyists and from people who work for Washington firms that do substantial lobbying; and millions upon millions from lawyers and lobbyists, the finance, insurance and real estate sector, and the healthcare sector. Indeed, federal lobbyists are allowed to volunteer for Obama (and presumably now the DNC). Moreover, as Patrick Ruffini notes, a whopping 1% of McCain’s donations were from PACs, even less from lobbyists.

As for those eeevil 527 groups, it should be noted that Obama does not want the money out of politics; he just wants to control the message. . . .

Read the entire post. And even the hyperpartisan NYT sputtered a bit on Obama's blaiming McCain for his decision to go back on his word about public financing:

Citing the specter of attacks from independent groups on the right, Senator Barack Obama announced Thursday that he would opt out of the public financing system for the general election.

His decision to break an earlier pledge to take public money will quite likely transform the landscape of presidential campaigns, injecting hundreds of millions of additional dollars into the race and raising doubts about the future of public financing for national races.

In becoming the first major party candidate to reject public financing and its attendant spending limits, Mr. Obama contended that the public financing apparatus was broken and that his Republican opponents were masters at “gaming” the system and would spend “millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations” smearing him.

But it is not at all clear at this point in the evolving campaign season that Republicans will have the advantage when it comes to support from independent groups. In fact, the Democrats appear much better poised to benefit from such efforts.

. . . Mr. Obama’s decision, which had long been expected given his record-breaking money-raising prowess during the Democratic primary season, was immediately criticized by Mr. McCain, who confirmed Thursday that he would accept public financing.

“This is a big, big deal,” said Mr. McCain, of Arizona, who was touring flooded areas in Iowa. “He has completely reversed himself and gone back, not on his word to me, but the commitment he made to the American people.”

Mr. Obama’s advisers said Thursday that they believed he could raise $200 million to $300 million for the general election, not counting money raised for the Democratic National Committee, if he were freed from the shackles of accepting public money.

Signaling how his ability to raise record amounts was already affecting the race, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, on Thursday released his first advertisement of the general election, spending what Republicans estimated as $4 million in 18 states, including some that Democrats have not contested in recent elections.

. . . Early last year, before he became a money-raising phenomenon, Mr. Obama floated in a filing with the Federal Election Commission the possibility of working out an agreement with the other party’s nominee to accept public financing if both sides agreed. Later, when asked in a questionnaire whether he would participate in the system if his opponent did the same, Mr. Obama wrote, “yes,” adding, “If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.”

. . . Mr. Obama, who has sharply criticized the influence of money in politics and has barred contributions from federal lobbyists and political action committees to his campaign and the party, announced his decision Thursday in a videotaped message to supporters. He argued that the tens of thousands of small donors who had fueled his campaign over the Internet represented a “new kind of politics,” free from the influence of special interests.

The Obama campaign highlighted Thursday the fact that 93 percent of the more than three million contributions it had received were for $200 or less. But Mr. Obama has also benefited from a formidable high-dollar network that has collected more money in contributions of $1,000 or more than even Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s once-vaunted team of bundlers of donations.

Indeed, Mr. Obama stands to receive a significant boost from fund-raisers who formerly supported Mrs. Clinton, of New York.

Michael Coles, a former Clinton fund-raiser from Atlanta, said in an interview that he was one of 20 to 30 Clinton supporters who joined Mr. Obama’s national finance committee at a meeting on Thursday in Chicago. Members of the committee have each pledged to raise $250,000 for Mr. Obama.

People from both camps said they expected most of Mrs. Clinton’s top fund-raisers to align behind Mr. Obama, and that they could raise at least $50 million for him.

Mr. Obama, however, cast his decision on Thursday as a necessary counter to unscrupulous supporters of Mr. McCain’s.

“We’ve already seen that he’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies’ running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations,” Mr. Obama said.

Mr. McCain has been highly critical in the past of 527s and other independent groups, but he seems to have softened his rhetoric lately, saying his campaign could not be expected to “referee” such groups. . . .

Read the entire article. To cast one's vote for this man requires an exercise in self delusion, identity politics and amorality that is all consuming. It is beyond my capacity in those areas.

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Obama, War and Political Expediency

Michael Gerson documents how Obama has placed political expediency over principle on the issue of the Iraq War. This transcends the mere question of whether Obama is being less than honest with the American public and goes to the heart of whether we would want such an individual as Commander in Chief.


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I am inclined to take candidates at their word. But that said, even if Obama has no intention of withdrawing our soldiers from Iraq were he to be elected president, would we not want such an individual as commander in chief of our soldiers during time of war? As I have written before:

[C]haracter matters in war, more so than in any other endeavor. By character I mean attempting to do what one perceives as right based on principles, even if doing so comes at great personal cost. It is the polar opposite of making decisions on the basis of expediency.

In that post, I go on to demonstrate why the character of a commander is so critical, and that a person willing to subordinate their principles on the scales of political expediency is not acceptable as a wartime commander in chief. They will be less likely to prosecute the war to successful conclusion and their decisions will be more likely to endanger our soldiers. Read the entire post.

Within that rubric, Obama clearly falls on the side of a person who has demonstrated that he places political expediency over principles. Michael Gerson, in an excellent article in today's Washington Post, examines Obama's changing positions on the Iraq war and compares them to McCain's steadfast adherence to his principles.

. . . If Barack Obama eventually wins the Democratic nomination, his extraordinary rise may be traced to a speech on Oct. 2, 2002, at an antiwar rally in downtown Chicago. That day, Obama, then an obscure state senator, said: "I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences."

For many Democrats, this prescience has given Obama the aura of a prophet. And this early opposition lends credibility to his current promise: to swiftly end the U.S. combat role in Iraq.

Recently, this pledge was called into question by Obama's now-former adviser, Samantha Power, who said: "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. senator. He will rely upon a plan -- an operational plan -- that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground."

. . . In a new article on Commentary magazine's Web site, Peter Wehner undertakes a thorough examination of Obama's record on Iraq. It is, shall we say, complex.

More than a year after the initial success of the invasion, Obama explained, "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." And he was correct. In July 2004, he argued that America had an "absolute obligation" to stay in Iraq until the country stabilized. "The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster," he said. "It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who have already died."

Two months later, Obama criticized Bush's conduct of the war but repeated that simply pulling out would further destabilize Iraq, making it an "extraordinary hotbed of terrorist activity." And he signaled his openness to the deployment of additional troops if this would make an eventual withdrawal more likely.

In June 2006, Obama still opposed "a date certain for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops." "I don't think it's appropriate for Congress," he said, "to make those decisions about what happens in the field."

By late 2006, as public support for the Iraq war disintegrated and his own political ambitions quickened, Obama called for a "phased withdrawal." When Bush announced the surge, Obama saw nothing in the plan that would "make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that's taking place there" -- a lapse in his prophetic powers.

When Obama announced his presidential candidacy on Feb. 10, 2007, he stated, "I have a plan that will bring our combat troops home by March of 2008." Then in May and again in November, he voted against funding American forces in Iraq.

Wehner concludes that Obama is guilty of "problematically ad-hoc judgments at best, calculatingly cynical judgments at worst." And he notes that while McCain has been consistently right about Iraq in the years since the invasion -- highly critical of the early strategy and supportive of a successful surge -- Obama has been consistently wrong in supporting the early, failed strategy and opposing the surge, even as its success became evident.

. . . [T]here is little doubt that Obama has gained in political support among Democrats as his positions on Iraq have become progressively antiwar. His March 2008 withdrawal deadline -- which is up now -- would have undone the Anbar Awakening, massively strengthened al-Qaeda and increased civilian carnage. . . .

The Iraq war determined the paths for McCain and Obama. But there is a large difference between them. McCain eventually won his nomination because he showed political courage in the face of overwhelming pressure. Obama may eventually win his nomination because he surrendered to that pressure.

Read the entire article.

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