Maybe Obama’s not so moderate

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson comes to a revelation the rest of us  have known for quite some time; Obama is a “false moderate“. It took ABC correspondent  Jack Tapper to enlighten Gerson;

 “Have you ever worked across the aisle in such a way that entailed a political risk for yourself?” Obama’s response is worth quoting in full: “Well, look, when I was doing ethics reform legislation, for example, that wasn’t popular with Democrats or Republicans. So any time that you actually try to get something done in Washington, it entails some political risks. But I think the basic principle which you pointed out is that I have consistently said, when it comes to solving problems, like nuclear proliferation or reducing the influence of lobbyists in Washington, that I don’t approach this from a partisan or ideological perspective.”

For a candidate running as a centrist reformer, this is pretty weak tea. Ethics reform and nuclear proliferation are important issues, but they have hardly put Obama in the liberal doghouse. When I recently asked two U.S. senators who are personally favorable to Obama to name a legislative issue on which Obama has vocally bucked his own party, neither could cite a single instance.

I guess the fact that we’ve been saying all along that Obama votes with his party leadership 100% of the time didn’t sink in. He has the highest leftist rating of any Senator – now I suppose he’s a “maverick” in the sense that he votes further Left than anyone else. is that what maverick means these days – just voting further Left than anyone in your own party – that’s what earned the moniker for McCain.

As I’ve been pointing out the last few days, Obama has proposed nothing but failed policies of the past – that’s hardly consistent with his “reformer” image. He wants to continue blocking our usage of domestic energy sources, he refuses to accept our progress in the war against terror, he clings to 60s radicals of all stripes and all national persuasions. He’s just a younger version of every Democrat President of the last 40 years (luckily there’s only been two).

I guess the Democrats, with Obama in the lead, are becoming the reactionary conservative party, since reactionary and conservative are terms that refer to policies that return us to the past.  That makes John McCain the forward-looking man in this race. Funny how that works.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Economy, Foreign Policy, John McCain/Sarah Palin, Politics