Barack Obama was supposed to be different. When he burst onto the scene with a speech at the Democrat Convention in Boston in 2004, the media breathlessly reported that this was an up-and-coming star. This guy was different, not just the color of his skin or his name, but his politics. The humble man himself said he was all about “a new kind of politics”.
Well, after one-third of one term in office, we now know that Barack Obama is just another Beltway politician. He is politics as usual. There is nothing new or different about Barack Obama, he’s just like the rest of them.
The case against Barack Obama?
1. His concern for the environment only goes so far
Barack is out pushing coal-to-liquid technology, hardly something at the top of mind for the environmental activists today. Charley Blandy of Massachusetts leading liberal blog Blue Mass Group had this to say about Barack earlier this week,
So, he’s not going to mandate that the fuel be made without greenhouse emissions, but he’ll provide incentives. And that’s good enough for him? I’m sorry, Barack, but that’s pathetic. You really just don’t seem to get it.
Maybe he does get it. After all,
The U.S. Department of Energy has issued a feasibility study for a commercial 50,000-barrel-a-day coal-to-liquids facility in the Illinois coal basin.
Could it be any clearer? Global warming is a threat to our way of life, to our very existence. Unless, of course, there is a pork project heading to Barack’s home state, then, well, do we need to be so rigid in our thinking of how we approach the problem? Maybe this coal-to-liquid idea isn’t so bad after all?
2. The money was ok by us until you all noticed we were taking it.
Of all the issues that inflame the liberal activist base, you’d have to put the evil Wal-Mart near the top of the list. I have recently done a series of posts about Hillary Clinton’s Wal-Mart problem. Well, what do you know, Barack Obama has his own Wal-Mart issue.
Barack’s wife Michelle has resigned from the Board of Director’s of one of Wal-Mart’s leading suppliers, a position she has held for two years.
Michelle Obama resigned her position as a director of Treehouse Foods today, ending the relationship with the Wal-Mart supplier that had threatened to become a problem for her husband, Barack Obama, in his bid for the Democratic nomination for president.
Treehouse supplies pickles and other specialty foods to Wal-Mart, a frequent target of union leaders who say the company treats its workers unfairly.
Michelle Obama cited increased demands on her time for resigning the position, which she had held since the summer of 2005.
Increased demands on her time? Like what, spending more time fielding question from union activists as to why she is taking money from a union hating company like Wal-Mart? Why was Treehouse acceptable in 2005 and not in 2007? If Wal-Mart is such an evil corporation, why was it ok take the position in the first place?
This is so transparent and bogus. They got caught with their hands in the Wal-Mart cookie jar and now they are backing away and trying to make things right, in appearance only, for the union activists in the Democrat party.
3. The reflexive need to pander
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Barack Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died.
The death toll was 12.
“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died—an entire town destroyed,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in a speech to 500 people packed into a sweltering Richmond art studio for a fundraiser.
All of this leads me to one inescapable conclusion, that despite the hype and soaring rhetoric, Barack Obama is just another Beltway politician. He’s not different, or special, he’s just like the rest of them. And its only been two and a half years.