If we could jettison gay rights and reproductive freedom we could probably get a lot more. - Digby

Perhaps it's not been noticed but according to the earlier quote about the "faith based" issue, churches most certainly MAY discriminate against gays and lesbians since sexual orientation is not covered.

Just think! We're halfway home!!!!

Where's home?

I'm an Obama supporter--and will be for this election regardless. But I'm not happy with the events of the past two weeks.

And one more thing that Glenn doesn't mention. I was disgusted to hear on the radio Obama say that the rhetoric of politicians "might have gotten overheated over NAFTA." That's a wussy way of saying that both he and Hillary Clinton lied about wanting to renegotiate NAFTA.

We knew it at the time. I knew from his voting record he was pretty much straight pro-trade.

In fact, if he supports NAFTA as it stands, then there it is. I'm not completely anti-trade--But. It bothers me that he expresses no regret over "positioning" himself on this issue, rather than being straight forward with working class voters during the primary.

Hillary Clinton had her chief strategist working on Columbia deals as she was talking about how she had been against NAFTA from the start (and Bill made 700,000 or so maybe more on the same Columbia deal)...and Obama..."overheated rhetoric." Wasn't that exactly what Austen Goolsbee was telling the Canadian embassy? And didn't Obama specifically disavow Goolsbee's disavowal?

Why did he bother?

ugh. I don't like this turn of events. It's not like I ever thought he was a saint, but it's depressing to know we were, from the beginning, trying to decide between Clinton and Clinton. We're losing the dream of the more honest Obama. And that is, I know no other way to put it, sad.

Obama has also adopted the Republican framing of taxes and has offered a tax program that will continue to lose revenue for the federal government. --Hume's Ghost

Lose money? Do you have something that shows revenue has declined since 2003? The CBO would disagree with that.

Yes, it is more progressive and less bad than either Bush or McCain. But the reduction in funding will still hurt the non-rich more than the rich and if federal debt is not paid off the interest on that is going to burden the non-rich in the future. A tax on posterity.

What reduction in funding? The budget gets bigger every year. Do you have something that disagrees with that? As for debt interest, who cares? The bottom 20% of tax payers contribute some 1% of income and payroll taxes. They don't pay taxes, only the rich do.

Meanwhile Clinton's tax cut in 1997 is what produced all the revenue that made up the surplus. Funny how no one ever mentions that part.

While I'm at it Gallup just ran a poll where 84% of the country is more interested in enervating he whole country rather than income redistribution. it would seem that libs here are not representative of the country after all.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/108445/Americans-Oppose-Income-Redistribution-Fix-Economy.aspx

But go ahead, vote for him. I'm sure the fact that you dislike his positions on constitutional rights will stop him from trampling on them.

-- sunny miller

Sunny miller? Have you, ever in your life, voted for anyone? If so, how often have you done so? At any one of those times, or all of those times, am I safe to assume that you were in agreement with every last damned thing they espoused? If not then I am more than safe to assume that you are being a blow-hard hypocrite for telling everyone else how voting puritanical or not voting at all is the Sunny Miller way and should be our way too?

Please let me know if you've ever voted for someone who had some ideas and ideals or some campaign actions that you were not in agreement with. Thanks.

It's nice to get a piece of news wherein Obama supports his base, instead of undercutting it. I think he deserves credit here for openly opposing the same sex proposition in California: http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/1051404.html. Standing up for the rights of people that by and large will vote for him anyway- something many of us expected more of from this candidate.

Bushies have no qualms about imposing ideological condtions on recipients of federal funds (e.g. "abstinence" or no abortion message for reproductive funds).

The funding policy should not be compliance with ideological non-science based tests.

But it is completely legitimate to condition funds upon compliance with law and good science. Discrimination has no scientific basis and is illegal and should not be subsidized.

The biggest disappointment of the last two weeks has got to be the lack of response from Obama. You would think that with literally thousands of repudiations of his shift in message, written about in hundreds of blogs nationwide, the creation of 7,000 blogs on his own website, protesting his unfortunate FISA decision, would ignite the damage control center of a fairly sophisticated political machine.

If there were ever a moment to roll out a bold response it would be now, but all we are met with is silence.

People who were lured into believing that he would change the political landscape feel betrayed, he was after all, the fresh face we all thought would be the leader of a new dynamic, a leader who would take charge and bring about change in the most fundamental way.

Instead, we have met a wall of silence, and all I can imagine is that the guy in the Norman Rockwell painting is actually Dorian Gray.

I imagine there are more than quite a few superdelegates suffering buyer's remorse this week.

"Seriously, just grow the hell up

by PsiFighter37

Mon Jun 30, 2008 at 11:15:43 PM PDT

I've been away from my computer quite a bit recently - that's what moving your own furniture into a Manhattan apartment will do to you - but upon catching up on the news tonight, I've become convinced that the blogosphere will always let perfect be the enemy of good...or even great. Yes, it's true that Barack Obama's positioning towards the center in preparation for the general election pisses a good deal of us off. Whether it has been his unjustified remarks about FISA or Supreme Court decisions (both of which relate to constitutional law, something that he ought to know a thing or two about) or his willingness to throw anyone who goes off-message under the bus, so to speak (such as MoveOn or Wesley Clark), Obama has tacked much further from his primary positions than many of us would care.

That being said, I'm really sick and tired of people - particularly prominent bloggers who should know better - bitching and moaning about Obama's imperfections as a general election candidate.

Why?

PsiFighter37's diary :: ::

The answer's simple: nobody's perfect. I challenge any of you to find a 'progressive' or 'liberal' politician who would be perfect to you.

Russ Feingold may have been the lone voice standing up to the first Patriot Act, but he voted for the confirmations of John Ashcroft and John Roberts.

Paul Wellstone was a strong liberal voice in the Senate, yet he voted for DOMA and the Patriot Act.

Dennis Kucinich, aside from being on the political fringe, was a lifelong pro-lifer until he decided he wanted to run for president.

Chris Dodd may do quite well on constitutional matters, but he voted for the Iraqi war, the Patriot Act, and is too beholden to the big banks and the hedge funds which he oversees from the Senate Banking Committee.

Howard Dean may have generated the first Internet-powered campaign and spoke out forcefully against invading Iraq, but he was a centrist governor who reluctantly allowed for civil unions in Vermont (and only because by a court decision, he was forced to).

Sherrod Brown is widely liked for his populist pitch, but he voted for torture in 2006.

I won't even bother to recount how many times Jim Webb or Jon Tester have disappointed us, despite getting substantial support from the local netroots scene to help them score upset victories in their respective primaries.

The point is this - and the story is quite familiar already: the netroots become enamored with a particular candidate. Said candidate does something contrary to what conventional wisdom as dictated by a small coterie of prominent bloggers agrees with. Netroots becomes angry, throws up hands in the air, pounds keyboards angrily, fills up pixels with frustration, and does very little to influence the debate. I agree with Booman that no one takes progressives seriously because...well, there isn't such a thing as a progressive. Or at least that's what many who hold candidate purity above winning with a candidate who broadly shares your views would have you believe.

While Obama's recent moves are causes for concern, they don't change the fact that he is substantially better positioned to not only win the presidency, but to be able to get progressive policies enacted - whether it's expanding health care availability to the entire population, getting us out of Iraq, protecting our civil liberties, or finding alternative sources of energy to help us ease our dependence on oil and other polluting fossil fuels. If the netroots and other activists on the left continue to get hung up on every little last 'mistake' Obama makes (and there have been mistakes; I sent an email to the Obama campaign requesting that they return my donations and that I would not be contributing any more volunteer hours after his capitulation on FISA), then it doesn't do anything to help us win more - and it makes the netroots' influence on the debate even less than it already is on a marginal level.

In short, grow the hell up. If you can't get over being disappointed by your candidate in politics...well, you're going to be disappointed virtually all the time.

"