Obama and Iraq -- a follow-up: Did he or didn't he oppose the invasion?

Unlike many of my readers, I'm not the sort to cry "Censorship!" simply because another site refuses to carry my words. A larger pro-Hillary site was going to republish the last post on Obama's shifting statements on the Iraq war, but the offer fell through after I expressed a lack of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton.

No prob. Unlike most of my oh-so-beloved readers, I understand that no-one should feel obligated to print material they dislike. Still, this turn of events did evoke a chuckle, since so many have accused me of being a Hillary stooge.

(One kind reader wrote in to say "This site is COINTELPRO!" Apparently, Hoover's operation has survived its alleged demise by some 35 years. Gee -- does this mean that the FBI has favored the Clintons all this time? Of course, many Kos Kooks and DUmmies also presumed that FOX News and ABC ran their Wright exposes under orders from the all-powerful Clinton Crime Cartel.)

Political zealots love false dichotomies as much as they love the presumption of bad faith, which is why one group of fanatics demonizes Clinton and worships Obama, while another worships Hillary and demonizes Barry. Neither camp gets me. I voted for Obama but have come to loathe him for running (mostly via surrogates) a smear-n-hate campaign during a primary. That's a stupid move by any candidate in any election year. (Yes, that strategy did work for W in 2000 -- the first of many bad precedents set by that man.) Even so, voting for Clinton seems as attractive as visiting the dentist: Maybe I'll haveta, but I don't wanna.

Just a few months ago, many a lefty rolled their eyes at both candidates. This stance is no longer permitted. Progs have become fundamentalist Christians, recognizing only The Messiah vs. Mrs. Satan.

Well, if you're a Manichaen theocrat, find some other blog. Everyone else is invited to witness a rare sight: I shall dine on a small morsel of crow, followed by a bite of chapeau. After that -- serious business.

When last we met, I accused Barack Obama of lying during the debates about his record on Iraq. He says that he was a consistent and vocal opponent of the invasion throughout his 2003-2004 Senate campaign. His spokesperson has also said that his voting record in the Senate has differed significantly from that of Hillary Clinton.

No-one has tried to defend the latter lie. On all Iraq-related votes save one, Obama and Hillary acted the same; on that one occasion, Obama took the more conservative position. (How many Iraq-related votes occurred during that period? Sixty-nine according to ABC; 85 according to Fox.)

He always voted to fund the war until less than a year ago. He opposed Russ Feingold's call for a withdrawal.

Very well, then. No need for me to apologize there. But what about his Senate run?

On this score, my readers got pluperfectly pissed off when I forbade ye olde subject-switch. They all wanted to scream "But Hillary...!" and I wouldn't let 'em, meanie that I am. That rule paid off: Forcing you folks to talk about Barack Obama and nothing else meant that some actual research got done.

And guess what? Some of those findings undercut my stance. I freely admit it. See what can happen when you don't dodge?

Some of that additional research also proved damning to Obama. We'll get to that presently.

As Churchill once said: I am always willing to learn, even if I do not always like to be taught. Special thanks go here to Gary Buell, proprietor of the fine Covert History blog; he is the only Obama supporter who has managed to take me to school. Please understand, dear readers, that insults are useless, praise is useless, topic-switching is both useless and infuriating -- but an informed challenge is priceless.

I had presumed that Obama made no anti-invasion speeches during his Senate run. Why? Because no such speeches appear on his site. In fact, during that campaign he had twice scrubbed the 2002 anti-war speech which now is back on his site. Deep Googling turned up no further evidence of Barack Obama being a "vocal and consistent" critic of the war during his campaign, as he now claims.

This pro-Obama compilation video starts out in 2002, with Obama speaking in a leftish district, a place where pro-Bush sentiments would have been politically risky. At the time, he was running for State Senator, not the U.S. Senate. (During the debates, he claimed to be running for the U.S. Senate in 2002!) Then the video hilariously skips right past 2003 and revisits him only after he had gained the title "Senator-Elect." Conclusion: Mr. Vocal Opponent had done all of his vocalizing with no video cameras running.

Before that election, at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama -- addressing a national audience for the first time -- assailed the conduct of the war but refused to criticize the decision to invade -- even though the nominee, John Kerry, did so in his acceptance speech.

In short, Obama's internet trail presents anything but a profile in courage.

And what about his book, The Audacity of Hope? Obama states that he doubted his opposition to invasion while watching TV coverage of the fall of Baghdad. (God only knows why he reacted in this way: That footage made me ill.) He even writes: "[O]n the merits I didn’t consider the case against war to be cut-and- dried" -- a sentiment which progs would find unforgivable if expressed by any other politician. The Savior From Illinois may do that which others may not.

Gary, however, found a couple of interesting bits that I had missed on Obama's Wikipedia page. Of course, Wikipedia shifts constantly, and partisans do much of the shifting. Still, the cites go to responsible sources, and they do inflict some damage on my argument.

A pay-per-view Chicago Tribune article reports that on March 16, 2003 -- the day of the 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein -- Barack Obama addressed an anti-war march in Daley Plaza and said It's not too late to stop the war."

Note the date. This story still does not buttress Obama's claim that he was a loud and vocal opponent of the war during his campaign, since he had not yet declared his intention to run. Neither does this account undercut the argument (based on The Audacity of Hope) that Obama's stance toward the war shifted when he saw the public cheer the fall of Saddam's statue.

Nevertheless, in March of 2003, Obama's ambitions were an open secret. And he did speak out, in public, against an all-but-inevitable war. Thus, I must concede some territory. Barack Obama did show political courage on that occasion.

Gary found another Tribune citation from January 23, 2004, after Obama had declared his candidacy. This piece is somewhat less impressive. Obama, like all the other Democratic primary candidates for that open U.S. Senate seat in true-blue Illinois, let the Tribune know that he still opposed the war. The Tribune cites no specific speeches or policy statements. Perhaps speeches were made, but they left no trace on the net.

Moreover, the very same piece shows that Barack Obama was far from the left-most candidate in that race:

Two--attorney Gery Chico and former securities trader Blair Hull--said they would back an immediate repeal of the controversial USA Patriot Act, which broadens federal police powers to investigate terrorism.

Did Barack Obama, who won the office, call for a repeal of the Patriot Act? No, he did not. He did call for some changes, however.

Still, this Tribune article does present senatorial candidate Obama as a war opponent, even as it makes one wish that one of the other guys had won.

I also found this piece from February 2, 2004, in which Obama cautiously opposes the war in an interview with a gay publication. He spoke to an ultra-friendly publication not likely to be read by the general public. Still, these words did appear after the invasion and during his candidacy.

So far, those two pieces are the only evidence I have that Mr. Loud And Vigorous Opponent Of The War said anything against the war while running for his current seat.

"And I was risking my political career," Obama later thundered, neglecting to tell his readers that his Democratic opponents took the same or greater risks -- and that he took no risk whatsoever after securing the nomination.

After all, he ran against Alan Keyes. Why take a chance?

More than that. He took no risk at all when speaking to a national audience at the convention.

More than that. Obama said other things in 2004 which seriously undercut his current position.

Obama both opposed and defended the Iraq War Resolution.

Check out the double-talk:

I would have voted against the October 10th congressional resolution authorizing the President to use unilateral force against Iraq. I believe that we could have effectively neutralized Iraq with a rigorous, multilateral inspection regime backed by coalition forces.

"Hey," the Bushies could plausibly argue, "but coalition forces did exist. "

Granted, I've always felt that the "Coalition of the Willing" wouldn't have borne such a name if all of the participants truly were willing. (The monicker always reminded me of Fat Tony's "Legitimate Businessmen's Club.") Still, how could the U.S. have created or participated in such a coalition without a congressional authorization of force?

Tony Blair did send in a good many British troops, and other countries did participate -- so one may fairly ask Barack Obama: What's your point? The coalition you call for could not have existed without the vote you say you would have opposed.

His formulation still backs the use of force in case inspections fail, which was precisely the intent of those who voted for the 2002 Act -- the text of which is here, incidentally. Like most laws, it's badly written, but the garbled text does seem to direct the U.S. to act in coordination with other countries. (See Section 3(b)(2).)

In essence, Obama was against the resolution before he was for it -- within the space of two sentences!

(By contrast, one of his Democratic opponents, Estella Johnson-Hunt, was forthright in condemning the very idea of the war. She may be less than erudite, but at least her god is not Janus.)

Not only that...

In 2003, Obama spoke out in favor of invasion -- a different kind of invasion.

One can interpret in no other way his 2003 interview with Jeff Berkowitz, part of an ABC compilation here. (Thanks to reader Scott.) The headline reads "Words of War: Clinton Camp Muddies Obama's Anti-War Stance but Record Is Clear." (Jeez -- weren't the DUmmies telling us not long ago that the Klinton Krime Kartel controls ABC News?) In fact, Obama muddies his own record, if you listen to what he actually said back in 2003.

To set the stage, you have to understand that Berkowitz (a local broadcaster) had interviewed Obama the year before, and knew full well that he had gingerly opposed the war in 2002. (Listen closely. Even in October 2002, he opposed invasion only if it occurred unilaterally.) Thus, Obama had to make a statement that could be twisted into a rough consistency with what he said earlier.

And so he did. Check it out, from July 24, 2003:

That was a tough difficult debate, because Saddam Hussein was a genuinely dangerous despot... My analysis said that Saddam Hussein was not an imminent threat, and that if we acted multilaterally, it would be better for our long-term security because we would be able to have a multilateral coalition and force that could have contained Saddam Hussein, conducted vigorous inspections, and if we ultimately had to overthrow him, we would have built an international coalition that would have moved forward.

Read this carefully. It's really just double-talk, meant to sound both hawkish and dovish at the same time. In essence, he backs the invasion, but says that we should have acted in concert with other nations. Yet we did. So again -- what's his point?

At no time, during that interview or in any other, does Obama say the obvious: "Inspections were underway. The invasion defied the 2002 resolution."

And before you leap in, I'll say it for you: Hillary Clinton and Kerry have also refused to make that obvious point. Edwards, if I recall correctly, has.

Obama goes on to say:

What we absolutely can't have from our United States Senator from Illinois is somebody who waffles on the issue.

This is as self-revelatory as Nixon's declaration "I am not a crook." By his own written admission, even as he said these words, he was starting to favor the invasion. Not many months later, at the convention, he refused to denounce the war in Iraq.

If you read this post and the previous one, you should be able to count about half-a-dozen Iraq war stances from Mr. Consistent Opponent. Imagine Rene Magritte as a breakfast chef, serving up a plate of waffles laid out beneath a sign reading This is Not a Waffle. That's Barack Obama.

Despite the conceded territory above, I may still safely repeat David Sirota's assessment:

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.

Note to the readers: 'Twas but a few bites of crow, and they went down nicely with a garlic butter sauce. Crow is fine -- duck ain't.

I haven't ducked, and neither should you. The topic, let me remind you, is Barack Obama on the war -- and nothing else. This post is not your cue to switch the subject in order to repeat those all of those prog-blog cliches you love so much:

"But Hillary...! Corporate whore...Chief Architect of the war...Bush/Clinton Crime Family... DLC... Vince Foster... Mena Airport... Whitewater... Protocols of Zion..."

None of that, kids. As I've demonstrated, if you stick to the topic and prove your point, I will revise.