i'm confused, how did obama....

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
i'm confused, how did obama....
242
Fri, 09-26-2008 - 9:43pm
6 years ago oppose the war in iraq? was he in senate then?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-18-2006
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 10:42am
You should really lighten up.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-15-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 10:49am

Proud of you for obtaining higher education, and sorry you are concerned about the interest on your student loans.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-20-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 12:50pm
must have missed the part where i said i was confused, and missed the post where i said thanks for the clarifications.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 1:22pm

Senator Barack Obama (D-Il), then an Illinois state senator, delivered these remarks in October 2002 at the Federal Plaza in Chicago.

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http://usliberals.about.com/od/extraordinaryspeeches/a/Obama2002War.htm

"I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil.

I don't oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil.

I don't oppose all wars. After September 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.

I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power.... The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors...and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure that...we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair."

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 1:32pm

Obama harbored doubts about his original position after seeing the statue of Hussein pulled down? THAT'S your big "gotcha" moment which "proves" that Obama has "waffled?"

Haven't we had enough of a President who says he never wavers in his opinions? Frankly, when it comes to electing a President, I've learned to be quite apprehensive of a guy who says he doesn't question or re-think his opinions, just on the theory that if you can't change your mind, are you sure you still HAVE one (instead of just a list of talking points)?

I mean, truly: on large and complex issues, don't MOST people (who aren't George Bush or John McCain, apparently, LOL) have different thoughts -- some positive and some negative -- about it? The decision is what you come up with ON BALANCE, but it DOESN'T mean you didn't have contrary thoughts about it.

And it certainly doesn't add up to "waffling."

It's also interesting that the very piece you provide concludes that the suggestion that Obama gave the speech merely to curry favor with Saltzman was "dubious." And what's even more dubious is the notion that Obama "had to" oppose the war because of his district! Obama DID oppose the war because he happened to AGREE with those people in his district who ALSO opposed it, that's why he ran for office there. I am pretty liberal; if I found myself living in Orange County, California, say (just as an example; let's say my wife's job transferred her there), I don't think I would run for office there....because it's such a highly conservative area. To begin with, there would be almost no chance I would win, if I DID choose to run, because my views are so at odds with the surrounding community. I would be soundly defeated....or I'd have to literally change my fundamental stances on MOST of the things I believe in, in order to get elected. What politician DOES that? Sure, politicians can waffle and change their stances.....but you don't intentionally run in a district where the majority of people are of a different political persuasion from yourself, and alter most if not all of your fundamental beliefs in order to seem palatable to them. You either decide you're not going to compromise your principles (and therefore not RUN), or you decide you're going to run as who you are....and probably lose.

Obama's opposition to the war wasn't DERIVED from his consituency, he was elected BECAUSE of similarities such as that between his views and those of his constituents.

I'm afraid your conclusions simply aren't supported by your premises. Obama wrote his own speech and delivered it in public at a time when public opinion was STRONGLY against his viewpoint. What about that says "not willing to speak his mind even if it's not popular?"


iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 4:00pm

You said..."Obama was not "forced" to give an anti-war speech. He has never waffled on his anti-war position."

I posted several items that refute your beliefs and posted them above.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 4:42pm

>>> I see, so you are taking one man's opinion as fact? Well be that as it may you have to remember that it is just his opinion.

One man? I presume that you're referring to Obama being "pushed" into making the war speech as opposed to his own quotes proving he waffled on his "anti-war" position? The "man," David Mendell, is a journalist with the Chicago Tribune with a decade of covering Chicago politics who has extensively researched Obama...

"Mendell has covered Obama since the beginning of Obama's campaign for the Senate and as a result enjoys far-reaching access to the new senator. His research includes exclusive interviews with Obama's closest aides, mentors, political adversaries, and family—most notably his extremely charismatic wife, Michelle. Mendell reveals the surprising, cutthroat campaign tactics sanctioned by Obama—who has steeped his image and reputation with the ideals of clean politics and good government—to win his Senate seat by employing some of the most ruthless operatives in the business.
http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780060858209/Obama/index.aspx

His perceptions are also supported by Sugar Rautbord, a friend of both Obama and Marylu Saltzman...

RAUTBORD: In October 2002, Betty was — Bettylu was the organizer for the anti-Iraq war that took place at Daley Federal Plaza, at which Obama made an important speech.

O'REILLY: Yes, and she said to him — he didn't want to — he was going, "I don't know whether I should do this." She said, "You'd better do it." And that's what I understand happened there.

RAUTBORD: That's true. And by a lot of the things — and I don't think a lot of people know this — Obama does a lot by consensus. He listens very closely to this circle of people that you mentioned.

O'REILLY: Well, he listened to Bettylu. Bettylu told him to get out there and be against the Iraq war, and that's what happened. Not to say that the senator wasn't against it, but Bettylu forced him to come out of the closet.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,425586,00.html

>>> I disagree, that is my opinion. So I guess we just have to agree to disagree on that one.

You're obviously free to ignore the facts, but until your opinion is supported by personal knowledge or extensive research I'm afraid that it doesn't hold much weight.

>>> Obama took an anti war stand at a time when the war was widely popular, unless he has some kind of esp it was a gamble politically since many people were labeled 'unpatriotic' at that time if they disagreed with anything Bush said about the war - remember the Dixie Chicks? So you can have your opinion - an I respect that, although I disagree with you and Mendell.

The Dixie Chicks were not reviled for their position on the war, but rather because they expressed those views, and attacked the President, on a foreign stage. As for Obama's "political gamble," Bettylu Saltzman is described as "a wealthy, committed left-wing philanthropist who can make or break a Chicago politician." With hopes of running for the Senate, Obama needed her support and wanted to please her. As Saltzman, herself, is quoted as saying...“He was a Hyde Park state senator. He had to oppose the war!”

"Obama agreed to speak at an antiwar rally in downtown Chicago, organized by Bettylu Saltzman and some friends, who, over Chinese food, had decided to stage the protest...Saltzman also called Marilyn Katz, who runs a Chicago public-relations firm and is close to Mayor Daley. Katz managed to get Jesse Jackson as a speaker, and handled many of the organizing details. Katz, a petite woman who was, improbably, the head of security for S.D.S. at the 1968 Democratic Convention, described what she felt the political mood was at the time of the rally. “Professors are being turned in on college campuses, Bush’s ratings are eighty-seven per cent,” she said. “Among my friends, there hasn’t been an antiwar demonstration in twenty years. There’s huge repression, Bush has got all this legislation. They’re talking about lists, they’re denying people entry into the country. . . . Bush’s numbers were tremendously high, but we had no choice. Unless we wanted to live in a country that was fascist.”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all

Again, you're obviously free to disagree, but an opinion based on denial isn't really much of an opinion.

>>> Interestingly many of the things Obama thought would come to pass when he made his speech against the war have come to pass - so even if it had been a political move (which I doubt) he seems to have been pretty accurate.

Obama was hardly insightful or prescient. He took a politically expedient position on the war with absolutely no responsibility for his decision...and waffled many times thereafter. If there had been other speeches, I have no doubt that his position would have changed as frequently as it has on almost every other issue. It has been stated several times, by people who know Obama, that he "leads by consensus," setting his course according to whichever way the political wind is blowing.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-16-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 4:50pm
Yawn
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 4:51pm

>>> Well the only way you are going to have your taxes raised under Obama's plan is if you make over $250,000 - so if you are making more than that and are still living 'pay check to pay check' something is wrong.

I'm afraid you're mistaken...

"Including all tax returns that had a positive AGI , taxpayers with an AGI of $153,542 or more in 2006 constituted the nation's top 5 percent of earners. To break into the top 1 percent, a tax return had to have an AGI of $388,806 or more. The top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers AGI over $64,702."
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

>>> I make considerably less than that - under $50,000 and as a single mother support 3 children and I don't live 'pay check to pay check'. I may not be able to buy my home or take fancy vacations but I am able to save money every month. Might suggest you visit the Living Frugal board here for some tips.

I suppose everything is relative. In Los Angeles or New York or most other major metropolitan areas, it's unlikely that you'd be able to rent anything bigger than a one-bedroom apartment and live on Raman noodles and mac'n'cheese earning $50K a year...but good for you.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-16-2008
Sat, 09-27-2008 - 4:54pm
Lots of pretty numbers but no relevance to my post - curious? Was there a point or just an attack?

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