Wherein I Borrow Armando's "Speaking For Me Only" Phrase
by dday
Let me just get a couple things off my chest.
1) The AP was flat wrong in its characterization of Obama's speech today regarding changing the Bush-era program on faith-based initiatives. He did not in any way claim that organizations receiving federal funding can discriminate in their hiring practices; quite the opposite, actually. Further, I don't see the problem with partnering with civic groups on anti-poverty programs (as has been done in this country for decades, including religious groups), demanding accountability from them, and ensuring that their participation complies with all relevant Constitutional statutes. I understand the argument that there's a distinction without a difference here, as a church group would get money to use on secular anti-poverty programs and save their own money to discriminate in other areas. But that suggests no faith-based charity ever got taxpayer funds from the government prior to big bad George Bush. They did, and in fact it was ruled unconstitutional for them to be denied funds for secular activities on the basis of religion. Further, orgs. like Catholic Charities are 100% separate from the Catholic church and can't really divert funds from one area to the other. At worst this thing will become a patronage factory for the left, which is a legitimate concern, but I think if they're serious about measuring effectiveness this can be averted.
2) I align myself with Chris Bowers' remarks regarding the McCain/media hissy fit over the Wes Clark's prefectly legitimate comments. Just because the media is outraged, and the conservative noise machine is outraged, doesn't mean the public gives a fig. See the Terri Schiavo situation for an example. There's a great deal of truth-stretching and near-delusional claims of nefarious Democratic cabals coming from the McCain camp now, and furthermore their surrogates are demeaning Wes Clark's military service while supposedly defending McCain's service.
"General Clark probably wouldn't get that much praise from this group. I can't speak for them, but we all know that General Clark, as high-ranking as he is, his record in his last command I think was somewhat less than stellar."
Given that one of McCain's biggest defenders here is Swift Boat Veterans for Truth star Bud Day, who was McCain's DIVORCE LAWYER back in the day, there is more than a whiff of political opportunism here that's prefectly visible to everyone. When they accused Obama of coordinating with Jim Webb in some sort of broad conspiracy, that's when the whole thing veered off into the juvenile.
Today Obama explicitly denied any analogy connecting Clark's remarks to the Swift Boaters, and insisted that his comments in yesterday's speech had nothing to do with Clark and were written two months ago. I guess I can buy that swampland in Florida, because I think Clark's going to be just fine, and he'll be in a future Democratic administration in a major role. I think most people shrug their shoulders at the whole thing, and the election will be far more likely to be decided on things like this graphic:
3) I'm not excusing Obama or in the tank for him or whatever other invective people want to hurl at me, but I think this expectation of being "stabbed in the back" by him occasionally into less factual territory. I agree with Arianna that moving to the center for the sake of pleasing elites is a loser's game, and the benefit is outweighed by the costs. You would think that a campaign that believes itself to be transformative wouldn't be so ashamed of the more transformative side of his own party. It does hurt his brand. But I think a lot of things are getting swept up in this "move to the center" narrative that ought to not necessarily be in there. And I think we have to be careful that our narratives don't get as rigid and impervious to contrasting information as the traditional media. There are plenty of reasons to be upset over some of Obama's recent stances that we don't have to invent new ones.
See also.
.
