Posted by
Sean on Sunday, June 29, 2008 4:10:19 AM
For someone as non-committal as Barack Obama is to his own pledges and promises, he sure had a thing or two to say about keeping your word to John McCain. Following McCain at the NALEO Conference (National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials) Obama had the stunning audacity to say this of his opponent:
“Now, one place where Senator McCain used to offer change was on immigration. He was a champion of comprehensive reform, and I admired him for it. But when he was running for his party’s nomination, he walked away from that commitment and he’s said he wouldn’t even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote.” (emphasis mine)
Criticize McCain’s blocked Immigration Bill all you like, but any fair observer can easily recognize that McCain’s stance on that issue caused enormous damage to his campaign, drove it to near total collapse, and almost prevented his nomination altogether. It may be the one single reason he never completely won over those in the Republican Party who consider themselves “very conservative.” Even many Democrats, like Obama supporter Bill Richardson, and former Clinton supporter Ed Rendell, have openly complimented McCain for his political courage on that issue.
Still, that’s not enough to convince the saintly Obama, who continued:
“We can't vacillate. We can't shift."
These are stunning words from a candidate who made multiple promises over the course of a year to work with his opponent on a publicly financed campaign -- but immediately dropped that pledge when it became financially advantageous to do so. This, from a man who said in front of AIPAC that Jerusalem "must remain undivided” -- then backtracked within a mere 24 hours from being perceived more hawkish than Israel's government, or even President Bush. As evidenced by his condemnation of FISA during the primary -- and subsequent support for the legislation in the general campaign -- Obama is someone who will say anything to please whatever audience he happens to need applause from at the time.
Contrast this with McCain, who has endured the punishment that often befalls a true non-partisan, and proven tough enough to survive. To this day, McCain offers his unfailing support to the extremely unpopular Iraq war. He criticized Rumsfeld early while supporting a change to what we now call "The Surge” -- years before it became popular with Republicans -- and long before anyone knew that the strategy would drastically reduce violence.
Barack Obama, in the meantime, not only hardly ever talks about Iraq anymore, but hasn’t even bothered to visit in the past 2 years. Perhaps he's been too busy running for President since 2006?
Comprehensive Immigration Reform was a risky issue McCain was willing to tackle. McCain led a heroic bi-partisan effort, enjoying cooperation from Conservatives like John Kyl, all the way to staunch liberals like Ted Kennedy. The most that can be said of Obama at the time is that he may have worked to add so many overtly partisan provisions to the bill that it became unworkable, guaranteeing failure, and leaving us with the status-quo we have today.
If Obama truly hopes to lift politics to a higher level of discourse as he says, he would do well to avoid questioning the integrity of John McCain, and perhaps work instead to clarify his own specific vision for America.