Obama's rhetorical bait and switch
Barack Obama is running on a platform of Hope and Change™ but
the only clear change seems to be in his policy positions. And the
angry liberal base of the Democratic Party is left with the ironic
hope that Obama is just doing what it takes to get elected. They
have been wincing as the once unapologetic liberal attempts to
morph into a safe and moderate centrist reversing himself on
municipal gun bans, the death penalty, welfare reform, NAFTA,
meeting with dictators, intelligence surveillance laws, and even
his commitment to withdrawing troops from Iraq.
To the consternation of the Obama camp, however, the media have
rediscovered their natural cynicism toward politicians who shift
positions for electoral gain. Words like slippery, evasive,
inconsistent, and even flip-flop have surfaced. When criticisms
mounted surrounding his changing positions on Iraq it became clear
it was time for Obama’s reflexive response to a buildup of bad
press: a big speech.
When the toxic sermons from his former church threatened to
derail his campaign he gave a speech on “Race in America.” He
conveniently avoided the original issue, his relationship with
Wright, but the speech was lauded by a swooning media.
Next up was questions surrounding his patriotism. There were a
lot of questions bouncing around: why didn’t he wear a flag pin?
Why did he start wearing one again if they were an example of false
or easy patriotism? Why did his wife say in that watching him run
for president she was proud of her country for the first time? How
could he be a friend and colleague with an unrepentant terrorist
like William Ayers who stands on the American flag? So once again
Obama took to the stage for a big speech.
Like his speech on race, Obama’s “patriotism” speech contained
some worthwhile sentiments but avoided answering the very questions
that prompted it. There was no explanation for his convoluted
answers about wearing the flag pin. He deplored the sixties
radicals who had attacked America but never explained his
relationship with Ayers. He praised those who serve in the
military, and rejected those who question their service, but failed
to explain why his surrogates – nearly a dozen by now - have
developed a pattern of doing just that to John McCain.
No sooner had he given that speech, however, than a new
controversy emerged when Obama spoke of “refining” his position on
the war in Iraq. Was Obama preparing to shift to the center as he
had on countless other issues? Was he going to abandon his strident
anti-war position in the face of persistent evidence that the surge
was in fact working?
The supposedly masterful rhetorician struggled mightily to
achieve a consistent understandable answer. After two hastily
called press conferences no one seemed sure exactly what he meant.
And so it was back to the big set speech; this time accompanied
with an Op-Ed in the New York Times.
And once again Obama managed to avoid the original issue and
attempted to pretend it was all just one big misunderstanding.
Obama claimed that he always knew the surge would work, on a
tactical level, despite having opposed it and promised that it
would fail to bring an increase in security or political progress.
He shamelessly pivoted from “the war is a lost cause and we must
get out” to “we are winning so we must get out.”
Just like in all his other major speeches Obama sought to change
the subject and erase his contradictory and confusing answers. He
declared the war a distraction from the real battle in Afghanistan.
He continued to ignore the strategic ramifications of the growing
progress in Iraq, and the folly of giving up now, even as he
grudgingly admitted to some success.
Caught between the strident anti-war position that helped him
win the primary and the clear changing of facts on the ground Obama
once again waffled and insisted he was perfectly consistent. This
was just one more attempt to rewrite history and his record. This
time, however, it is not about his offensive pastor or the wearing
of a flag pin, but about a central national security question. That
should trouble even his most ardent supporters.
In his speeches Obama often touts his faith in the wisdom of the
American people. But his actions in this campaign indicate that
what he is really counting on is their short term memory.
This may be a successful short term electoral strategy, but it
is a shallow and dangerous one in the long term.
*Richard H. Collins is the founder of Stop-Him-Now.com, a website
dedicated to educating the public about Barack Obama's radical
agenda.*
