Bent Corner

Evidently the McCain campaign is running an ad that compares Barack Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. I think this is below the belt. The McCain campaign  is way out of line comparing Obama to these two celebrities.

Neither Britney Spears or Paris Hilton voted with Republicans giving retro immunity to the telecoms for their part in illegal warrantless eavesdropping.  Neither Britney Spears or Paris Hilton stated that a woman’s mental health shouldn’t be a factor when considering exceptions to the ban on late-term abortions.  I also don’t think neither Britney Spears or Paris Hilton chose a hateful racist to be their spiritual adviser.

Not that I even know whether or not these two ladies have spiritual advisers.  I’m guessing they don’t.

Hopefully the McCain campaign comes to their senses and pulls the ad before it does any lasting damage to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain spoke yesterday on a litany of topics including Iraq and Afghanistan. He tried to point out where he and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama differed on on Iraq, mainly on the so-called “surge”. From Real Clear Politics:

Where Senator Obama and I disagreed, fundamentally, was what course we should take. I called for a comprehensive new strategy — a surge of troops and counterinsurgency to win the war. Senator Obama disagreed. He opposed the surge, predicted it would increase sectarian violence, and called for our troops to retreat as quickly as possible.

The problem with McCain’s comment is that although what he said was “technically” correct, the Obama campaign had already retroactively removed all proof that he opposed the surge from his website.

That means it never happened. 

It’s clear that McCain is grossly out of touch when it comes to politics of the 21st century. McCain should know that before critisizing Obama on an issue, he should first refer to the official Obama website or his MySpace page to see if the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee still holds that perticular stance on the issue.  He very well may have flip-flopped refined his position, like he did on FISA and or Federal campaign finance. 

John McCain is now left with egg on his face.  I don’t really know what that saying means.  I only know that it’s not very good.

Not only did Barack Obama vote with the Republicans on giving retro immunity to the telecoms for their part in illegal warrantless eavesdropping, he first voted for closure so the actual bill could be voted on.  This is the complete opposite of an earlier pledge to support a filibuster of the bill.

From an Obama spokesman last October:

To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.

The only thing that’s clear is that the word of Barack Obama is not to be trusted.  Voting with the Republicans on closure is a complete betrayal.

From the AP:

Bowing to President Bush’s demands, the Senate approved and sent the White House a bill Wednesday to overhaul bitterly disputed rules on secret government eavesdropping and shield telecommunications companies from lawsuits complaining they helped the U.S. spy on Americans.

The relatively one-sided vote, 69-28, came only after a lengthy and heated debate that pitted privacy and civil liberties concerns against the desire to prevent terrorist attacks. It ended almost a year of wrangling over surveillance rules and the president’s warrantless wiretapping program that was initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The House passed the same bill last month, and Bush said he would sign it soon.

Barack Obama was one of the many Democratic Senators to bow to Bush’s demands. Hillary Clinton was not. She voted “Nay“.

Remember Ron Paul? Back when the House voted on the matter, Ron Paul was no where to be found. He didn’t vote.

I feel as though liberals are quickly running out of reasons to vote for Barack Obama.  He seems to be flip-flopping on one issue after another in an attempt to appear more to the so called “middle America”.  Not that I even really know what that exactly is.

First he backed away from the rock solid 16-month time table for pulling out of Iraq by saying that he was holding on to the right to “revise” (flip-flop) his Iraq plan if he received new information from commanders on the ground.  He then “revised” his promise to oppose giving retroactive immunity to telecommunication companies by stating that he would vote for a bill that did just that.

When he caved on Iraq and then FISA, I figured the only thing that was left was the idea that liberals had to vote for Obama, or McCain would stack the Supreme Court with judges that would take away a woman’s right to an abortion.

Now I’m not even sure of that.

Via TalkLeft, quoting the AP:

In an interview this week with “Relevant,” a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain “a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother.”

Obama then added: “Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.”

Not only does is sound as though Obama doesn’t respect a woman’s right to choose, it sounds like he doesn’t respect the seriousness of mental illness.  Both physical illness and mental illness are very serious issues.  Nether should be taken any less serious then the other.

To put this into context, it seems that Obama would not allow Andrea Yates, the Texas woman that drowned her five children to recieve a late-term abortion.  That’s a position I would expect John McCain to have.

Barack Obama has made the issue of pulling out of Iraq his signature issue.  It turns out that his get-out-of-Iraq-in-16-months policy is not as rock solid as he has made it seem.  Obama said today while speaking to a veterans group that when he goes to Iraq and speaks to commanders on the ground, he just might learn things that might cause him to “refine” his plan.  From the AP (via Yahoo!):

He said what he learns from military commanders on his upcoming trip to Iraq will refine his policy but “not the 16-month timetable” for withdrawing U.S. troops from combat in Iraq. He said what he learns could affect how many residual troops might be needed to train the Iraqi army and police.

So what exactly will there be to refine?  Either he completely pulls every combat brigade currently in Iraq out within 16 months of taking office or he doesn’t.

As much as I hate absolutes, it’s kind of an either-or type of thing.  He has backed himself in a corner with the 16-month time table.  There’s not an awful lot of wiggle room when it comes to pulling out of Iraq.  Either he does it in 16 months or he doesn’t.

He caved on his pledge to participate in federal campaign financing.  He caved on not giving the telcos retroactive immunity.  If he caves on pulling the troops out of Iraq within 16 months, he had better do it after the Democratic National Convention next month.  If he does it before, a few of the so-called “committed” superdelegates just may throw their votes to Hillary Clinton, making her not the presumptive nominee, but the actual nominee.

I’m starting to think that when Obama talks about Change™, he is refering to his ability to say one thing and then do something completely different.  I think he got away with it with campaign finance and FISA.  I don’t think he will be as lucky when it comes to getting out of Iraq.

The Democratically controlled “Say One Thing, Do Another” congress is at it again. They have agreed to cave on giving telecos blanket immunity:

The agreement announced earlier Thursday resolves a long-running dispute over whether companies like AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. could be sued for agreeing to let the government tap the phones and read the emails of customers in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

They are facing nearly 40 lawsuits from people who claim their civil liberties were violated and from groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The terms of the deal state that a district court would review the written authorizations to participate in the program granted to the companies by the the Bush administration. Once the existence of these authorizations is determined, the court cases could not proceed.

Section 222 of the 1934 Communications Act forbids phone companies from giving out data on the calling patterns of their customers. It’s a law. We either live in a country governed by the rule of law or we don’t. It should be simple, but obviously it’s not. Instead of the Congress passing a bill that gives telecoms immunity for breaking the law, they should change the actual law.

Instead, they took the lazy way out.

And how did the presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama respond to this issue? He announced that he is now supporting it.  Granted, he said he was against it back in February, but that was then and this is now.

It’s not like he was under oath when he said he was against giving the telecoms blanket immunity. For all we know, he might have had his fingers crossed when he said it.  More importantly, he is now in full general election mode and he doesn’t want to look like a pussy when it comes to fighting terrorism.