Obama Senate Record: "Minor Role"

The New York Times has a major article today about Senator Barack Obama and his short career in the U.S. Senate.  It's titled "Obama in Senate:  Star Power, Minor Role."  It highlights his lackluster record as a first term Senator, not unusual in that august body where seniority is hard won and long lasting.  Respect, of course, can be secured regardless.  A few excerpts:

"And while he rightly takes credit for steering through an ethics overhaul that reformers called a “gold standard,” like most freshmen he did not play a significant role in passing much other legislation and disappointed some Democrats for not becoming a more prominent voice in other important debates."

Remember, ethics in Washington are a shallow comparison of what the rest of us think as "ethical behavior."  It's all relevant.  DC ethics still allow for undue influence by lobbyists and people like John W. McCain decrying the influence of lobbyists while allowing them to run his presidential campaign and for him to fly all over the country in their private jets.  What's the name of the campaign finance "reform" bill which allows this?  Oh yes, McCain-Feingold.

"He was cautious — even on the Iraq war, which he had opposed as a Senate candidate. He voted against the withdrawal of troops and proposed legislation calling for a drawdown only after he was running for president and polls showed voters favoring it"

What's this, he voted against withdrawing troops?  He expressed the same political opportunism of which he accuses his opponent?

In comparison to New York Senator Hillary Clinton's experience coming to the Senate he said this:

“I wasn’t the first lady, and I didn’t have some of the political baggage of eight years of hand-to-hand combat between the White House and the Republican Congress,” he said soon after he first arrived. “In that sense, she had a harder task.”

Yes, she was tested repeatedly by the Republican attack machine.  It's safe to say no Democratic candidate has been so thoroughly tested as Sen. Clinton.  She has been tested by every conceivable interest group, Republican demographic interest operation, by right wing media, even by the conspiracy crazies who accused her of murder.  It doesn't get more "over the top" than that, it's the epitome of dirty, smear politics.  She's been tested by all of them and she's...ready.

Comments

[TC]

Barack Hussein Obama has his work cut out for him in Pennsylvania.
http://acropolisreview.com/2008/03/barack-hussein-obama-benjamin-franklin.html

[Lee Levan]

John

Although I'm sure you didn't intend to do so, you drew out a wingnut who evidently believes that it is a valid political issue to hold a candidate's middle name against him, even though the candidate had no choice in the name and even though his father, the person who gave him the name, abandoned him at age 2. Enough said about that ignorant nonsense.

About your point (and I appreciate your acknowledgment that you are a paid consultant for Hillary's campaign), this election is about the future of the Democratic Party and this country. If Hillary captures the nomination, many of the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new voters which Obama has brought into the political process will become so disillusioned that they will stay home in November (resulting in the election of McCain) and most of them likely will not enter the political process again. I don't believe this country can afford to lose their involvement.

As Obama says, he can't do it all himself. To change this country will require the effort and enthusiam of many Americans. Only Obama has a chance to draw that effort and maintain that enthusiasm.

[John Morgan]

Actually, the website does a nice job of explaining the meaning and origins of the name.