Barack Obama claims to represent a “new kind of politics,” to transcend the typical maneuvering and pandering of politicians that we have grown accustomed to accept as normal and commonplace. He claims that his candidacy embodies the characteristics of “Hope” and “Change We Can Believe In”.

But the message Obama has staked his candidacy on, and the message he has recently portrayed on policy matters, smack of anything but a “new kind of politics.” He is a consummate flip-flopper, an artful master of shifting his policy positions and statements to suit whatever audience he may be addressing, and also an artful master of covering up his pandering intentions with cleverly devised pseudo-explanations which rationalize his shifts–when it comes to certain associations, comments, or policies which are not entirely endearing to the public. The dramatic flip-flops are posited as nothing more than reasonable adjustments, or when he is feeling his humblest, mistakes from which his superior judgment has rescued him.

Let us have a look at some examples of key shifts Barack Obama has made which will illustrate for you that the presumptive Democratic nominee will truly do whatever it is he feels will benefit him politically.

Trinity United Church of Christ: Obama joined the church which was popular among the African-Americans in his community whom he was seeking to court in his aims for political office in Chicago. He was a member of the church for over 20 years, and the pastor who had mentored him there, married him there, and baptized his children there, Obama described as being “like an old uncle.” When video clips surfaced on the internet showing his pastor virulently denouncing the United States of America and blaming this great nation for bringing 9/11 upon itself, Obama sought to mildly distance himself by simply calling the statements “inflammatory,” hoping to sweep the issue of his radical pastor under the rug.

Soon after, the Reverend Wright spoke to the National Press Club defending his “inflammatory” beliefs and describing more in-depth why he thought they were true. Wright, who was not only a pastor but also a good friend and confidant of Obama, shrugged off the senator’s efforts to distance himself from his former pastor. The former pastor remarked:  “Senator Obama is just a politician. He doesn’t mean what he says.”  With those words, Reverend Wright expressed what he had known all along about his former parishioner and good friend: Obama is “just a politician”. Obama “doesn’t mean what he says.”

Not long after, Senator Obama sharply condemned the man who had been his spiritual mentor and father figure for two decades, claiming that Reverend Wright’s comments at the National Press Club (asserting that AIDS was invented by the government to keep down blacks and more) did not reflect anything he had ever heard from the man before. He then promptly resigned from the church, in an effort to once and for all bury the controversial church which had once been a political boon but now served only as an obstacle to his election goals.

Another example of Obama’s political pandering is a fundraising speech he gave to a group of limousine liberals in San Francisco in April. He explained his difficulty in winning over small-town Pennsylvania voters as resulting from economically frustrated Americans who “cling to guns or religion.” Of course, the crowd of Bay Area liberal elites present at the fundraiser loved “Doctor” Obama’s diagnosis of the symptoms of those misguided gun-toting, God-loving Americans. Yet those elitist liberal values which disparage the right to bear arms as well as the unequivocal faith of many Americans do not mesh with the majority of this country.

Yet once again, Barack attempts to smooth over the concerns of voters with a recent ad tailored to middle American states which gives off the impression that he believes in exactly the same things that those “bitter” small-town Pennsylvanians and Kansans do. It casts him and the family who brought him up as stunningly “white.” While playing up his “black” side and going to Rev. Wright’s church suited him in Chicago, it now suits him to emphasize his “whiteness” and cast off all the “blackness” which he was once eager to wear on his sleeve. You can see the new commercial below:

Obama’s New Ad, entitled “Country I Love”

Not only is Obama’s skin color chameleon, apparently his policy positions are, too. Lately the Illinois Senator has made some major switches on positions ranging from abortion to gun rights to free trade to the Patriot Act. Obama has voted in favor of partial birth abortion, has defended Chicago’s handgun ban, decried the “evils” of NAFTA, and vowed to deny immunity to the telecommunications companies who, at the government’s request, helped gather information on the phone habits of possible terrorist suspects. More recently, Obama has asserted that he would not permit abortions for the sake of alleviating “mental distress”; he has also claimed that he agrees with the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down the handgun ban in Washington, D.C. (which would, by principle, overturn the handgun ban that Obama once said he supported for Chicago). Furthermore, he has in recent days proclaimed that he “believes in free trade” and stated he will grant immunity to the telecom companies after all. Numerous key shifts on numerous key issues.

Let’s also not forget his position on public financing. Once trumpeting his promise to use public funds to run his campaign, he now shuns the idea under the mantle of “representing the democratic will,” claiming that he is better representing the political will of “small donors.” Ditching his old campaign promises which positioned him well as a new kind of candidate, he is now glad to throw off the yoke of the system which would limit his spending. Now that he has cash flowing in as if he were a Saudi oil king, he is happy to forget his former pledge and trudge on ahead, breaking his promise to the American public– all so he can win a political office no matter the cost.

Perhaps Obama’s most striking flip-flop, however, lay with his policy on Iraq. Whereas Obama earned much acclaim from the antiwar left for his consistently strong stance against the Iraq War, he has recently come out stating that he would be open to changing his position on the war after his visit with military commanders in Iraq. After riding to the nomination of his party on the coattails of his allegedly consistent, unequivocal opposition to the War in Iraq and repeated promise of withdrawing all combat troops within 16 months, he suddenly leaves open the door to a massive “change” in his policy on Iraq. Of course, he can easily justify this flop, however, by claiming that his trip to Iraq and discussions with generals changed his mind. And his eager followers will still vote for their winsome candidate.

The only “change we can believe in,” when it comes to Senator Obama, is that he will change anything and everything about himself for the sake of political expediency. That is not the quality of a courageous man, and certainly not the quality I would look for in a prospective Commander-in-Chief.

Obama claims to represent a “new kind of politics”, but all of his recent actions clearly represent an old kind of politics–one filled not with “hope,” but with cynicism.

This divisive issue, however, should not even enter into the political arena. The job of the government is to assure the safety and liberty of its citizens, not to regulate each and every household in the United States. The government has no right to define marriage. Marriage is something to be defined within a religious context, and last I checked, this nation was pretty big on the separation of church and state. In order to alleviate this stress between the legal and religious definitions of “marriage,” I propose that in all government documents the word “marriage” be replaced with “domestic partnership” or some other neutral term. Don’t think of it as “politically correct terminology,” think of it as “finding the right phrase.” This would side-step the entire issue of the government having to take a stand on same-sex “marriage.” Everyone is happy unless you feel that the sanctity of your marriage has been “cheapened” because that word doesn’t appear on your tax papers. Don’t you have something better to whine about? Leave the term “marriage” to the various churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques of the world’s religions. It’s time to grow up, America, because the closet doors aren’t staying closed anymore.

This optimistic prediction assumes that Obama will receive the nomination from the Democratic Party, which seems most likely right now. If a lawsuit against the DNC for representation of the Florida Democratic delegates currently under way succeeds, however, it might turn the tide. A brief description of the lawsuit is below:

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/05/22/lawsuit/index.html

McCain’s chances would rely primarily on his wrestling away much-needed swing state electoral votes from Obama, which some pundits think the Arizona senator can accomplish by virtue of his numerous candidate strengths and Obama’s various vulnerabilities. McCain is a decorated war hero, a former prisoner of war, a straight-shooter who speaks his mind and stands by what he believes even if it is unpopular, a maverick who has agitated for change in Washington from the Senate floor for more than twenty years, and a pragmatist who is able to work with both sides of the aisle. Obama, on the other hand, is a left-wing ideologue who has for twenty years attended a church led by an anti-white, anti-American, conspiracy theorist who still believes–despite overwhelming scientific evidence–that there are genetic differences between whites and blacks which make their brains different, and who furthermore believes that the United States government intentionally infected the black community with the AIDS virus. In addition to his long and apparently deep relationship with the radical Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama speaks of bipartisan unity but has the honor (or dishonor) of holding the most liberal voting record in the US Senate. See here:

http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/

McCain could well capture many states normally up for grabs in election years, including Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and possibly even the traditionally Democratic California. I think this is achievable if voters see the true story of Obama: his staunch liberalism masked by his eloquent calls for unity, hope, and change, they will shy away from supporting him, and instead consider the more moderate, conservative, common-sense, and principled approach of John McCain. The key is showing the electorate the true Obama, while highlighting the remarkable personal journey of Senator John McCain’s life, a life filled with steadfast commitment to public service.

You can read the article on McCain’s potential for a “blowout” victory below:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10585.html

But the Republican governor’s stance on same-sex marriage has been curious and confusing to many people.

This is only confusing if you understand the structure of the United States government less than an Austrian immigrant, which apparently is true for the vast majority of Californians, including the supposedly well-educated ones who hang out on college campuses.

Arnie’s view has been pretty much consistent. California banned same-sex marriage via Proposition 22 in 2000. As such, he vetoed the legislature’s attempts to overturn it, because the legislature is subordinate to the people in terms of legislation. The people’s legislative powers, in turn, are subordinate to the Constitution, but if the Constitution prohibits Prop 22, then it was up to the judiciary to determine that (as it did).

Note that Arnie’s own opinion didn’t matter in that construction. If you recognize ideas such as separation of powers or structured government, where each aspect of the government has a specific role, then Arnie’s view is the obvious one.

On the other hand, if you view every branch of government as just one more place to get your way, rather than an entity with a specific job to fill, then you’ve been complaining about Arnie’s anti-gay hatred for the past few years and/or are calling him a hypocrite right now.

If you’re a professor, and you cross the line with a coed, it will cost you your job. On the other hand, you can violate moral, ethical, and legal standards. You can hurt the reputation of your university and your country. You can bring shame upon the nation and harm its standing in the world. You can put our soldiers at risk unnecessarily. You can enable people to be humiliated, tortured, and possibly even killed. And, aparently, you can do it all in the name of “academic freedom.”

The short response is “yeah, that’s pretty much right,” but the lines are phrased to encourage negative responses that are independent of actual consideration of the issues involved, and the ideological goal is hidden with quotation marks as if it’s being presented as an excuse.

The article includes a hyperbolic discussion of various topics framed to make Yoo look as bad as possible, somehow including both complaints about how Yoo wrote a torture memo because non-torture methods weren’t working on Abu Zubaydah (”He started the government’s torturing ways!!!”) and complaints about how Yoo wrote the torture memo after Abu Zubaydah was already being tortured (”He was participating in a cover-up!!!”). It also references a Nuts and Boalts post, referring to the blog as a “campus web site,” which is true for some values of “campus web site,” in the sense that it includes a bunch of Berkeley Law students who often deal with campus issues, but it has no direct affiliation with the campus.

The discussion of academic freedom is a tortured (pun intended) treatment of the subject, and one I’ve seen quite often. While first explaining that Yoo probably won’t be convicted of a crime, a standard suggested by Dean Christopher Edley, Gammon shows his true colors with this paragraph:

But what if no court ever indicts Yoo? Does that mean he’s destined to mold the minds of tomorrow’s top lawyers while continuing to stain Boalt and UC Berkeley’s reputation for the next quarter century or more? Not necessarily. Despite Edley’s contention that he has no options, it turns out there are plenty of ways to get rid of Yoo.

The honest approach to academic freedom does not include the plan suggested here: First pick which professor you want to get fired because of his views, and then look for some kind of rule you can use to fire him. The comparison to Ward Churchill is perhaps apt on this score, as he appeared to be a victim of much the same way of thinking, since the university didn’t care about his academic misconduct until he sparked a different controversy with his ideological comments. The rest of the comparison, though, is laughable:

The University of Colorado ultimately decided that Churchill’s essay was protected by academic freedom. But during its investigation discovered that Churchill had committed research misconduct in some of his other scholarly work. A university panel charged him with “plagiarism, misuse of others’ work,” and “falsification and fabrication of authority.” In essence, he ripped off other people’s ideas and made stuff up.

“Made stuff up” is not even close to the issue here, but Gammon uses the simplistic phrase so that he can then apply it to Yoo, who he claims made up a legal theory that helped the administration. Making up theories is part of a professor’s job. To say that the theory was unsupported is a claim of the work being shoddy, not intellectually dishonest.

In comparison “making stuff up” on Churchill’s part was not writing unsupported theses. Churchill ghostwrote essays to provide supporting points for his papers, and then cited his own work without identifying it as such to bolster his argument. He also described false events as factually true, and falsely attributed statements to authors.

To try and treat these two forms of “making stuff up” as comparable intellectual dishonesty is itself an act of astounding dishonesty. As the East Bay Express moves away from challenging corrupt government authority through deep investigation and adopts the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s model of “rah rah” attacks on safe targets, it puts some of us in the strange position of supporting corporate-run, rather than independent, alt-weeklies.

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