Outsourcing Petty Politics

A pattern develops with the speeches and appearances of Senator Obama as he runs for the highest office in the land. He, who claims to be above petty politics and standard gotcha politics, has a habit of letting his campaign surrogates do the dirty work for him.

The first full on assault of Senator McCain, falsely stated by Obama, was the selective quoting of his answer to a question at a town hall meeting concerning the U.S. involvement in Iraq. McCain was asked how long our troops were to be in Iraq and McCain said it would be ok with him if it was 50 years, or even 100 years for that matter, as long as American soldiers were not being killed and warfare was non-existent. As a security detail, such as in Germany, Japan or South Korea, an American presence in Iraq would be perfectly acceptable.

To hear Obama tell the story, McCain expects the U.S. forces to be fighting for 100 years. It was completely dishonest on the side of Obama and it was only for an opportunity for Obama to say once again that he would have voted against the Iraq War. Easy enough for him to say, as he was in the Illinois Senate at the time, not the U.S. Senate in D.C. For a guy with a penchant for voting 'present' on the tough issues, or walking off the Senate floor as a difficult vote is being taken, he sure does talk a big game.

Now Obama has decided to chide McCain as a dunce on the economy. Never mind that McCain has been the chairman or the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, the largest committee in the Senate, for all these years. Obama may want to look at the committee's mission. Obama claims McCain will be more of the Bush economic policy years. He claims the average American household income has gone down $1,000. Problem is according to the most recent Census Bureau data, over the last six years, the increase is $6,052 for the average household. He claims America has lost 1.8 million jobs. According to the Labor Department, there has been a greater than 5.2 million increase. Not to mention the longest consecutive job growth, per month, of any recorded history since World War II. All of these attacks have been spoon fed by the DNC for Obama to repeat. No new politics there either.

The truth of McCain's fiscal record in office is an even bigger problem for Obama. McCain has never requested or brought home an earmark. Not so Obama. McCain voted against the tax cuts of 2001 because the spending increases weren't cut to counteract the tax cuts. This goes to the character of the man, not the political opportunist.

According to MSNBC's First Read, a blog of the liberal cable station, Obama said, "Now, that's what's going on here, but I don't need to tell you this, it's going on all across the country. John McCain yesterday said that we are, that, that during George Bush's tenure, the economy actually made great progress. That's his quote." According to First Read, 'However, the attack, like the one earlier today parsed McCain's comments, quoting him on saying that the economy had grown but not including the fact that McCain acknowledged job losses and had said that the economic statistics brought "no comfort" to those suffering the most from the recent downturn."

Change? No petty politics?

From Slate, an article by John Dickerson on the campaign trail with Obama in Pennsylvania. "On his train tour Saturday, Senator Obama continued to condemn the petty distractions that keep Americans from focusing on real issues. He decried Clinton's "tactics of Washington," in which she attacks him with every possible weapon. While the candidate was denouncing the distractions, his aides were promoting them. Three veterans of the Bosnia conflict joined for a conference call to explain just how crucial this particular distraction was, and why we should ignore Senator Obama's guidance and get obsessed with this issue." "Shortly after the conference call ended, Senator Obama's train pulled into Downington and he worked the crowd into a frenzy denouncing the scourge of petty distracting attack politics."

"Obama campaign aides scheduled the call to talk about Hillary Clinton's fantastical story about her breakneck race to shelter under sniper fire during a visit to Bosnia. You might think this would be the last story the Obama campaign would be pushing, because in Wednesday's debate the Senator mistakenly suggested his campaign had only discussed the issue because reporters had brought it up, not because they were trying to take advantage of Clinton's extended work of fiction. To push the story again now would make Obama look even more insincere about that claim."

Interesting. Obama's own personal style of job outsourcing.

Wonder if those bitter, gun-toting, Bible clutching, beer drinking small town Pennsylvanians will vote for the Obama style of change.