Barry’s True Colors not Popular with the Left

An article by an ultra liberal in today’s Guardian makes an interesting point about the Messiah’s position in the recent SCOTUS Kennedy-vs-Louisianna decision.

Tough for others to swallow is what Patrick Kennedy did. He repeatedly raped his eight-year-old stepdaughter, causing massive internal injuries. He left her to die, but her life was saved by multiple surgeries.

Substantively, Obama’s position is in keeping with past statements. He’s never been a blanket opponent of the death penalty, supporting it in cases where “the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage.” One can disagree with that position, and I do. But it’s kind of hard to argue that a crime like Kennedy’s isn’t deserving of the full measure of outrage.

In saying that Obama has “never been a blanket opponent”, the Guardian cites Wikipedia. Not the best source and he clearly was at one point but again that whole “change” thing has become very clear of late.

The US population overwhelmingly supports the death penalty and Obama knows it. To me, this seemed to be an obvious shift to pander to those bitter folks (whose votes he still needs) and more evidence that MoveOn is clearly under the bus.

But the Guardian sees it differently and by differently I mean racially.

But here’s the thing. Kennedy is African-American. It’s pretty easy to envision the attack ad that could be made against Obama if he’d taken the position here some liberals wanted him to take. An image of Kennedy appears on the screen, photo-shopped to make him look terrifying. Sinister music swells. The voiceover intones: “Barack Obama wants criminals like Patrick Kennedy to have a chance to go free so they can rape children again.” And so on.

This is the old “Avoid Willie Horton” strategy and although it makes sense politically, it is certainly not a very principled position to take.

Amazingly, the Guardian agrees with me but doesn’t care. Win at all cost baby.

I’ve always objected to setting up principle as a value that’s oppositional to winning. To me, winning is a principle. It’s the highest principle there is. If you win the election, you can do at least some of the good things that will improve people’s lives in the country and around the world. If you lose it, you can’t do any of them.

(Photo from PowerLine)

Category: Politics