To Tell the Truth
BARNES, FRED
To Tell the Truth Will the real Barack Obama please stand up? BY FRED BARNES E.J. Dionne’s column in the Washington Post asked this question about Barack Obama: “Is he Adlai Stevenson or John...
...He infuriates Republican senators when he campaigns as a Democrat willing and eager to compromise with them...
...He noted he was “raised by a single mom,” was “on food stamps for a while,” and “went to school on scholarship...
...Obama uses the phrase “okeydoke” to characterize the old-fashioned politics he opposes...
...That is common sense...
...This self-description is idealistic, lofty, and extravagant...
...To be fair, “elitism” is a somewhat amorphous charge, based particularly on his comment at a San Francisco fundraiser last month that small town Pennsylvanians are “bitter” about their circumstances and “cling” to issues like guns and religion as a result...
...Because the senators allowed several conservative nominees to be confi rmed...
...No one should expect a politician to be brutally candid in talking about himself...
...But we don’t...
...It’s practically never happened...
...He didn’t mention his voting record...
...But Obama eventually backed out, prompting an angry response from McCain...
...Obama has said he was misunderstood, but he hasn’t repudiated his statement...
...An impressive coalition of liberal (John Kerry, Chris Dodd) and moderate Democrats (Sam Nunn, Oklahoma governor Brad Henry) has come together to support Obama’s candidacy...
...Growing up and then as a young lawyer, he wasn’t an elitist...
...Despite polarization, the Senate is an opportunity-rich environment for bipartisan compromise...
...Dishonesty isn’t...
...There’s nothing liberal about wanting to make sure everybody has health care...
...At least in stolen moments, he does...
...In the New Republic online, John Judis wondered if Obama might be “the next” George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee who lost in a landslide...
...He’s a liberal, a bit to the left, and, like most graduates of Harvard Law, a member of America’s meritocratic (but nonetheless elite) upper class...
...Dionne’s column in the Washington Post asked this question about Barack Obama: “Is he Adlai Stevenson or John F. Kennedy...
...Obama is equally emphatic in denying he’s an elitist...
...And in 2008, as political scientist James Ceaser has noted, “the choice of the person will loom large”—indeed, larger than usual...
...He has a point...
...It would be pretty hard for me to be condescending towards people of faith since I’m a person of faith and have done more than most other campaigns in reaching out specifi cally to people of faith...
...This matters because Americans choose an individual, not a party, to fi ll the presidency...
...If voters elected the next president by party preference, the White House successor to George W. Bush would almost certainly be a Democrat...
...Let me tell you something...
...Ideology...
...But it’s Obama’s insistence he’s not a liberal that’s closer to being an okeydoke...
...Does this make him a phony...
...Senator Obama, the most exciting presidential candidate in decades and the likely Democratic nominee, is the main reason...
...Is it fair for Obama to call himself a uniter who brings people together...
...Of course not...
...There’s nothing liberal about wanting to reduce money in politics...
...He’s supposedly waiting for the fall election to do so...
...That’s asking too much...
...But is he telling the truth...
...He’s seized on a big idea—bringing Americans together in a rebirth of national unity—to frame his campaign...
...But there’s a more relevant and important one: Is Obama who he says he is...
...So when somebody makes that argument, particularly given that I’ve spent my entire life working with workers, low-income communities, to try to make people’s lives a little better, then that’s when you know we’re in political silly season...
...On every major issue, foreign or domestic, he votes the liberal line...
...If what he says is true, he comes close to being what most Americans say they seek in a president...
...Obama told a gathering of veterans in Washington, Pennsylvania, he’s “amused at this notion of elitist...
...Let me be absolutely clear...
...They have supported me precisely because I have listened to them and I know them well...
...But as a senator—and this surely is a more important test—Obama has been anything but a uniter...
...But it does make him something else he insists he’s not, a conventional politician with a clever spiel...
...He’s running as a new kind of national leader who rejects “the same old politics” and intends to change the way Washington works and the country is governed...
...His most famous stab at compromise was a lobbying reform bill he cosponsored with John McCain...
...After authors agreed to put an item in the bill at Obama’s request, he proceeded to vote for poison pill amendments favored by liberal groups, amendments that, if passed, would have killed the bipartisan deal...
...I don’t think so...
...There’s nothing liberal about wanting to make sure [our soldiers] are treated properly when they come home...
...Obama was a minor player in the bipartisan Senate bill on immigration that failed last year...
...And he has yet to defy the wishes of a single major liberal pressure group...
...Let’s look at Obama’s claims for himself without either flyspecking them for fl aws or setting the bar too high...
...The most notable instance of bipartisanship since Obama entered the Senate was the Gang of 14, seven Republicans and seven Democrats who reached agreement on judicial nominations...
...Oh, he’s liberal, he’s liberal,” he said last month, making fun of his critics...
...One of his responses to the liberal charge is: “Don’t let them run that ‘okey-doke’ on you...
...Instead, he’s a reliable Democratic vote...
...He’s also proved attractive to independents and to a surprising number of Republicans...
...But he violated the spirit of the compromise...
...But Obama has never been a leader in crossing the aisle...
...Moderates and conservatives await that moment...
...Obama lauded the group but didn’t join it...
...The National Journal rated Obama’s voting record the most liberal in the Senate, but he says he’s not a liberal...
...Why not...
...He’s running a strikingly personal campaign that places far less emphasis on ideology or a partisan agenda than on the man himself, Obama the person...
...Exaggeration is acceptable...
...He took Hillary Clinton to task for saying, “I’m elitist, out of touch, condescending...
...But the issue now, for what it’s worth, is whether Obama belongs to the educated, sophisticated upper class of urban America, and refl ects the attitudes of this class...
...So is Obama who he says he is...
...Both are interesting questions...
...The same is true with respect to gun owners...
...He further characterizes himself as someone who unites political foes, rejects partisanship, will end polarization, and is neither a liberal nor an elitist...
...That depends on whether you’re talking about his presidential campaign or his three-plus years in the Senate...
Vol. 13 • May 2008 • No. 32
