Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Obama on the Economy

Link to his remarks reprinted at The Washington Post.

Once again, in response to a current issue, we see Barack Obama being thoughtful, articulate, and honest--mixing specific policies with a rhetoric of compassion and understanding, in sharp comparison to John McCain's empty rhetoric and dishonest (and, increasingly, in times of crisis, dangerous) spin.

Obama is certainly elite when compared to McCain, who is merely elitist. The former means one of a very few. The latter means one who works in service of the very few.

Come on, people, open your eyes.

This election shouldn't even be close.

4 comments:

Peter T Chattaway said...

The latter means one who works in service of the very few.

For some reason I am reminded of how Obama received more contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than any other legislator since 1989, with the exception of Chris Dodd, despite being a U.S. senator for only three of those years.

Peter T Chattaway said...

And now it turns out Obama lied in his speech, about his role in forming the stimulus package -- or at any rate, he exaggerated his role therein:

In Golden, Colo., today, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., took credit for the stimulus package that passed earlier this year.

"In January, I outlined a plan to help revive our faltering economy," Obama said, "which formed the basis for a bipartisan stimulus package that passed the Congress."

Is that true?

Democrats on Capitol Hill who support Obama say no.

Wanting Obama to win, however, none will say so on the record. . . .

Kenneth R. Morefield said...

Yawn.

Do pro-Republican bloggers actually read the articles they link to? Or do they figure that since nobody else will, they can just characterize them as saying whatever they want in the ongoing attempts to brainwash the American people with spin over substance?

So each of the three major candidates, when they saw the stimulus package was coming, offered their own version of the legislation so that they could take credit for it. Hardly seems to me to be a substantive "lie" on the level of, say, "I said 'thanks but no thanks' to the Bridge to nowhere" or that police and social agency approved programs to protect children from sexual predators by telling them what to do if someone wanted to "bad touch" them constitutes sex education for kindergartners.

Now if you want to claim that the stimulus package is a pretty odd thing to be championing one's support of given the fact that massive deficit spending is at the core of the country's economic mess, I'm right there with you. But I crazily persist in thinking that John "I voted with Bush 95% of the time but still call myself a maverick" McCain would just be another "borrow, borrow, borrow and spend" Republican who would be even worse for the economy and the country.

I comfort myself in the knowledge that Vancouver's zero electoral votes aren't going to swing the election either way. (Though I lose sleep over contemplating how many people who genuinely seem to care about truth swallow so many Republican lies just because they (the lies) are whoppers and they (the Republicans) have learned not to blush when they tell them.

Bracing myself for a chorus of "you are so sexist and unpatriotic" attacks.

Peter T Chattaway said...

So each of the three major candidates, when they saw the stimulus package was coming, offered their own version of the legislation so that they could take credit for it.

And then one of them, Obama, failed to even vote for the package, but went on to try to take credit for it anyway.

Hardly seems to me to be a substantive "lie" on the level of, say, "I said 'thanks but no thanks' to the Bridge to nowhere" . . .

That one does seem dubious, but whenever I try to read up on it, I get lost in a thicket of budget proposals and counter-proposals. I'm willing to put it in the same "exaggeration" category as Obama's stimulus-package claim, though.

. . . or that police and social agency approved programs to protect children from sexual predators by telling them what to do if someone wanted to "bad touch" them constitutes sex education for kindergartners.

Um, actually, Obama has lied about that one, just as he has consistently lied about his reasons for voting against the protection of "babies born alive". So there is certainly a lack of blushing there, too.

Anyway, you began this thread by saying that Obama was being "honest" in his speech and refraining from "dishonest spin", but the facts don't seem to support that claim. At the very least, his speech was misleading, on this point.