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The Incremental Revolutionary
Pam Sutherland, president of Illinois Planned Parenthood, tells NEWSWEEK that the ploy was her idea: "Senator Obama was always a no vote in committee, but we had other Democrats, and a couple of Republicans, who were tired of having mailers sent out against them." Sutherland says Obama could have voted no without suffering any negative fallout, since he came from a very liberal Chicago district. But, she says, his participation in the deal helped give cover to his colleagues.
The abortion maneuver is emblematic of a style of politics that shows up throughout Obama's career, both in Illinois and in Washington. Though in speeches he sounds like an idealistic revolutionary out to take back the capital, Obama's record suggests he is actually more of an incrementalist. On the stump, he speaks in the grandest terms, but in practice he inches his way toward a goal. At times he has settled for a piece of what he set out to achieve in hopes of getting a little bit more the next time around. If Obama is selling any revolutionary idea, it's a celebration of compromise.
That's a rare concept in Washington, where getting nothing done is seen as a victory, and giving up an inch to the other side a defeat. "Since the founding, the American political tradition has been reformist, not revolutionary," Obama told Harper's magazine in 2006. "What that means is that for a political leader to get things done, he or she ideally should be ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead. I want to push the envelope but make sure I have enough folks with me that I'm not rendered politically impotent."
No one ever won a presidential campaign with the slogan "Incremental Change for Working Americans," and Obama's inclusive, take-what-you-can-get style has had mixed results. In Illinois, Obama sponsored an expansion of a program called KidCare, which extended health coverage to children up to 200 percent above the poverty level (up from 185 percent). In all, it extended benefits to an additional 150,000 people in the state. But his efforts to push a much more ambitious universal-health-care proposal stalled when his colleagues demanded to know how to pay for it. Obama realized the plan was going nowhere, and settled for a compromise: a commission to study the issue. "Anyone can introduce a bill," says Dale Righter, a Republican who faced Obama on the issue. "Anyone elected to the General Assembly can turn on their microphone and make a speech."
In Springfield, Obama, who got his political start in the tough political wars on Chicago's South Side, knew the value of making friends fast. He curried favor with the chamber's battle-scarred veterans, including Senate President Emil Jones, an old-school Chicago pol. When he first arrived, Obama chose the worst seat in the chamber, way in the back next to the men's room. Anyone who needed to relieve himself had to get by Obama first.
Obama befriended Democrats and Republicans, including law-and-order conservatives—friendships that proved useful as he helped reform the state's death-penalty policies. After legal activists uncovered several wrongful convictions of death-row inmates, there was no doubt the system needed to be fixed. The then Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentence of every Illinois death-row inmate. Jones, the state Senate president, picked Obama to broker a deal between feuding Democrats and Republicans. Obama pushed a plan that would require police to videotape their interrogations and confessions incapital cases.
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Member Comments
Posted By: Lee Holmes @ 07/02/2008 8:21:46 PM
Comment: Nins: Why are you peddling BS trotted out by a pack of leftwinged rags? General James Simmons,not only did not cancel such a display,but produced it before reporters of several news services including CNN,NBC,Agence France Presse,REUTERS,the AP,ABC,and others on Nov.17,2007. Indeed,why would Iranian Supreme Council Member Ayatollah Khamenei agree that such arms were indeed,flowing to Iraq in his Nov.18,2007 meeting with Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq? You are presenting only half-truths with regards to Irans nuclear program. The IAEA not only acknowlages that Iran is making enriched uranium,but as late as last month,acknowlaged that Iran was ''only two years away from a nuclear weapon.Perhaps less.''[Remarks,Muhammed El-Baradei June 20,2008,AL-ARABIYA]. The IAEA recognizes that Iran now has plutonium,along with its acknowlagement that its large numbers of centerfuges ''could produce enough material for one bomb in six months to one year'',hence El-Baradeis newest worries. At this moment,Iran refuses to allow full inspections by the IAEA.
Posted By: Nins @ 07/02/2008 7:17:20 PM
Comment: Why did the US military cancel a news conference where they were going to display the "Iranian" weapons they found in Iraq? Because there WERE NO IRANIAN WEAPONS to display. Here are links supporting the fact that the weapons found in Iraq did not come from Iran:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_05/013695.php
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/05/fire_next_time.html
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/05/iraq-the-elusiv.html
NOT TO MENTION that the Untied States itself has had a notable role in arming the insurgency. When the US dissolved the Iraqi Army, that flooded Iraq with weapons. More recently the Pentagon admitted that it had lost track of a third of the weapons distributed to Iraqi security forces in 2004-05, totaling 190,000 assault rifles and pistols that are currently on the streets of Iraq. The British paper that published this article got it's information straight from the US Government Accounting Office's public website: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pentagon-admits-190000-weapons-missing-in-iraq-460551.html
Ask yourself, why would America want to pretend that Iran is pushing weapons in Iraq, when actually WE (the USA) has flooded Iraq's streets with weapons? Because Bush wants to declare war on Iran, and just like the fake "WMDs" in Iraq, he needs something to frighten Americans, so he comes out with this BS about Iran killing US soldiers in Iraq. He has also said that Iran is making nuclear weapons, but recent inspections have found NO EVIDENCE of nuclear weapons in Iran. JUST LIKE how repeated inspections found NO EVIDENCE of WMDs in Iraq. The reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN inspectors and nuclear experts at the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) all agree that Iran DOES NOT have nuclear weapons. The IAEA report states that Iran only has "low enriched uranium, not the highly-enriched uranium necessary to produce a bomb." The ISIS reports states "It is important to note that they do not encompass the full scope of work required for a comprehensive nuclear weapons program. Missing is theoretical work on nuclear weapons, uranium metallurgy, and the development of a neutron initiator." http://www.yirmeyahureview.com/articles/2008/iaea_report_on_iran.htm#_ftn9
In case you think the idea that Bush wants to bomb Iran is reactionary, you should know that John Bolton, former US Ambassador to the UN, recently told FoxNews that he can "definitely envision Bush bombing Iran before he leaves office." By bombing Iran, Bush makes it more likely McCain will be elected. But can the US Treasury, can the US economy stand more war? Even if we could afford it, we don't have the manpower in uniform. You know what that means: draft and conscription. Vote for McCain. Watch your children come home in body bags. Watch America go into a Great Depression.
Posted By: dking312 @ 07/02/2008 2:26:23 AM
Comment: You goofy silly, folks who still act and look like dinosaurs in our space age.
You people who can't get off of that.