Obama Lie Numero Uno -- IRAQ

A week ago, I promised a series on the many prevarications of Barack Obama and his surrogates.

Obama Lie Numero Uno: The Iraq war.

In speech after speech, Barack Obama has said that he has been a consistent and vehement opponent of the war from the beginning. His website labels him "a consistent, principled and vocal opponent of the war in Iraq."

I loudly and vigorously opposed the war in Iraq.

You can find the above Obama quote all over the net. Less easily found is the context: He went on to speak in favor of continued war funding, because "Now that we are there, all of us want to see the mission succeed."

When MSNBC's David Shuster said that Obama and Hillary Clinton had exactly similar voting records on Iraq, Obama spokesperson Susan Rice falsely replied: "The records are quite, quite different." In fact, if you look at every single Iraq-related vote since he achieved the Senate, Obama has cast a vote differing from Clinton's only once -- the confirmation of General George Casey -- and Obama took the more conservative position on that occasion.

"I was in the middle of a high stakes campaign. I was one of the most vocal opponents of the war, and I was very specific as to why." So said Barack Obama, lying through his teeth during a debate. The moment is caught in the video above, starting at the 1:50 mark.

In a September 26, 2007, debate at Dartmouth College, Obama congratulated himself for "telling the truth to the American people even when it's tough, which I did in 2002, standing up against this war at a time where it was very unpopular. And I was risking my political career, because I was in the middle of a U.S. Senate race."

This statement is a provable lie.

In 2002, when Barack Obama gave one (1) speech (for which no professional recording exists) denouncing the drive toward war, he was not campaigning for the United States Senate. He was running for re-election to the Illinois State Senate in a very liberal district. Expressing pro-war feelings would have been politically suicidal.

At that time, he spoke at a left-wing event at which Jesse Jackson was the featured figure. Even so, Obama denounced the upcoming war only after asking advisers "Am I gonna have damage politically?"

Tellingly, the speech was not videotaped. (At least not professionally.) The video on YouTube is a fake created by the Obama campaign. I doubt that any other Democratic candidate would be allowed to get away with so bold a step as to re-create a speech.

Before the invasion, Barack Obama never wrote a single essay, article, blog comment or letter to the editor against Bush's drive to war. He made sure not to leave an internet trail.

In fact, he took pains to destroy all record of his 2002 speech by removing it from his website -- the only easily-accessible source for his words on that occasion. On his official website, he now calls his war position "consistent." If so, why the scrub?

Obama's ploy was clever: If the war had been successful and popular, no-one could easily prove that he had ever denounced it. If public opinion turned against the war, he could claim that he had always opposed it.

"Political damage"? Nope!

Obama did not announce his quest for a U.S. Senate seat until late in 2003. Even though Illinois was and is a reliably blue state, I have yet to find a single speech made during that campaign in which he questioned the decision to invade Iraq.

His website says that

In 2003 and 2004, he spoke out against the war on the campaign trail.

Neither that site nor any other known to me -- and I've done some heavy-duty Googling -- quotes Obama speaking out against the decision to go to war during that period, although he may have critiqued the conduct of the conflict.

In truth, while "in the middle of a high stakes campaign," he suddenly became eager to address any non-Iraq topic. On one occasion when he was forced to confront the war, he became the mirror image of George W. Bush. In July of 2004, he told the Chicago Tribune:

There's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage.

Supporters try to excuse this quote by saying that Obama referred to the occupation, not the invasion. In fact, it is the Obama apologists who have sought to blur that distinction.

They have consistently portrayed Hillary's vote in 2002 (a vote which mirrored those of Kerry and Edwards) not as an authorization of force if Saddam refused weapons inspections -- as we know, inspections did eventually occur -- but as an endorsement of both the invasion and the ongoing occupation.

Obama supporters can't have it both ways.

In his speech to the Democratic convention, Obama refused to denounce Bush's decision to go to war -- even though the nominee, John Kerry, did just that. So did Bill Clinton.

Obama's apologists have claimed that he danced around the subject of Iraq in 2004 in order to avoid embarrassing Kerry. But in his acceptance speech, Kerry denounced the invasion with forceful invective. To thunderous applause, Kerry said: "I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war." And: "Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so."

Remember these words?

I will immediately reform the intelligence system, so policy is guided by facts and facts are never distorted by politics. And as president, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we have to. That is the standard of our nation.

John Kerry said those words. Obama -- still worried about "political damage" -- refused to utter anything remotely similar.

Hypocritical progressive bloggers now damn Kerry as an appeaser while crediting the always-calculating Obama with a courage he has never displayed.

In his book The Audacity of Hope, Obama admits that he reconsidered his opposition to the war during the fall of Baghdad in 2003. At the time, the invasion commanded broad popular support. Although he criticized the conduct of the ongoing occupation, Obama did not again denounce the decision to go to war until the public had decisively turned against W's great misadventure.

On July 26, 2004, Obama essentially offered a public apology, in the pages of the New York Times, for doubting Bush's justification for war:

I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.

In his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote (page 294):

Not only was the idea of an invasion increasingly popular, but on the merits I didn’t consider the case against war to be cut-and- dried.

Speaking once more to the New York Times in 2006, he continued in this vein:

"I didn't have the benefit of U.S. intelligence," he said. "And, for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices."

In other words, he still would not call into question the very basis of the Iraq misadventure -- even after the Niger forgeries were exposed.

His first Iraq-related vote came when he voted to confirm Condi Rice as Secretary of State. Her many lies in the run-up to the Iraq invasion did not seem to bother Barack Obama.

When did Barack Obama first vote against funding the Iraq debacle? Less than one year ago.

Previously he had voted for every funding bill:

2005 Vote # 117, HR1268, 5/10/05
2005 Vote # 326, S1042, 11/15/05
2006 Vote # 112, HR4939, 5/4/06
2006 Vote # 239; 2006 Vote # 186, S2766, 6/22/06, HR5631, 9/7/06.

On November 23, 2004, Obama told Charlie Rose:

Once we go in, then we're committed... We have got to do everything we can to stabilize the country, because we have too much at stake in the Middle East.

John Kerry's public stance was quite different. He admitted that he was misled by the Bush administration in 2002. Kerry called for withdrawing American troops and replacing them with an international peacekeeping force, including soldiers from the region.

In 2005, Senator Russ Feingold proposed an orderly complete withdrawal from Iraq. (Go here if you want to see what a truly consistent anti-Iraq record looks like -- much more consistent than either Clinton or Obama can claim.) The progressives who now applaud Obama favored Feingold's proposal. Yet Obama refused to support it -- in fact, he opposed it. However, he did so in a very Janus-faced fashion, praising Feingold while speaking to a friendly audience. Despite this praise, Obama told the Chicago Tribune in December of 2005:

"It is arguable that the best politics going into '06 would be a clear succinct message: 'Let's bring our troops home'...It's certainly easier to communicate and I think would probably have some pretty strong resonance with the American people right now, but whether that's the best policy right now, I don't feel comfortable saying it is."

A month earlier, in November of 2005, Obama called for a gradual troop draw-down: "Notice I say 'reduce,' not "fully withdraw."

By contrast, both Jack Murtha and Russ Feingold had already asked for full withdrawal.

I have yet to find a single instance when Obama took a politically risky stance on the war. As David Sirota put it:

So yes, Obama did oppose the war back in 2002. But yes, between that speech and the announcement of his presidential run when loud opposition to the war became a Democratic primary necessity, he has dithered between not talking about the war, supporting funding for the war, and even suggesting that he might have voted for the war had he been in the U.S. Senate at the time.

Throughout 2007, progressives demonized Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whom leftists considered a Bush appeaser. Yet Reid had tried to implement a bold plan which would have cut all Iraq funding within a year -- to be specific, by last month. This plan was initially opposed by Barack Obama, at a key time when Reid was trying to rally support:

The freshman senator has been trying to position himself as the antiwar candidate in the Democratic presidential primary, but this weekend he told the Associated Press that he will support continued funding for the war—even if President Bush follows through on a pledge to veto any hard withdrawal date.

That move puts Obama in lonely, treacherous waters—directly in opposition to Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who announced he will push to cut off funding for the war within a year.

At the last moment, with an eye on the poll numbers and his presidential chances, Obama did vote yea on the joint resolution. So did Hillary Clinton. The bill failed by 12 votes; Obama did no noticeable arm-twisting.

One of Obama's top foreign policy consultants, Samantha Power, said that the Senator, if elected, probably would not follow through on his campaign pledge to withdraw from Iraq. She said that the campaign's plan to remove troops within 16 months actually represented only a "best case scenario" which was unlikely to happen.

Today, key Obama advisor Colin Kahl has suggested keeping 80,000 troops in Iraq until 2010.

Not once has Obama taken a risky, principled stand on Iraq. He has opposed the war only when protected by a political safety net. He portrays his record as consistent, despite his Mystique-like ability to shape-shift. And when Bill Clinton accurately denounced Obama's "opposition" to the war as a "fairy tale," Obama's big-media supporters pretended that Clinton's words were somehow racist.

Barack Obama is both an intellectual coward and a shameless revisionist of his own history. Like the banker who will lend you money only when you don't need it, he opposed Bush's war only when doing so carried no political cost.

Barack Obama: Profile in cowardice.

Note to readers: Don't duck. Don't dodge.

In other words, don't do ye olde topic-switch.

And don't bother typing up any comments beginning with the words "But Hillary..." We are not talking about Hillary Clinton in this post. We are talking about Barack Obama. If you think I have mischaracterized his position -- if you think I have left out an important quote -- fine, let's see your sources. I am all attention, and I am perfectly willing to rewrite.

But I will not allow you to switch topics.

And need I remind you that it is swinish to presume bad faith whenever a writer says something that goes against your biases?

(This post can be republished in toto by anyone.)

UPDATE: A reader named Scott has sent links to videos which allegedly show Obama making anti-war statements in 2002 and 2004 -- but NOT during the Senate campaign. I've decided not to do a full rewrite of the above piece; you cn check out the sitch for yourself in the comments section below. Scott's latter video is really, really, really funny -- in fact, it proves my point superbly. So first, read comments 29 and 30 below, then check out the video evidence for yourself.

And strap yourself into your office chair, because you may fall out of it if you get the same kind of giggles I got.