Senator Obama has promised us a new kind of politics but as Powerline reminds us:
Earlier this year, three-fourths of the Senate voted in favor of a resoution designating the Iranian National Guard as a terrorist organization. Among those who voted for the resolution were Hillary Clinton, Richard Durbin, Harry Reid, and Chuck Schumer. Obama voted against it.
Yesterday, however, Obama told the AIPAC convention that the Iranian National Guard is, in fact, a terrorist organization. He attempted to explain his recent vote to the contrary by claiming that the resolution contained language about military action. But this is false, and transparently so -- if it had contained such language Clinton, Durbin, Reid, and Schumer would have opposed it.
Obama's change in position on the Iranian National Guard is mirrored in other flip-flops, with more likely to come. On the vital issue of the Iraq war, for example, Obama spoke out against it as a state legislator. But when running for the U.S. Senate in 2004, he declared that there is little difference between his position on Iraq and that of President Bush. After his election, differences quickly reappeared, and Obama's position continued to evolve over the next several years. When it comes to Iraq, Obama makes the John Kerry of 2004 look constant.
Is Obama dishonest? I'm not prepared to say that, but it's troubling that much of what he says turns out to be inconsistent with the facts. Perhaps there are reasons for this inconsistency. If so, I'd like to know what they are.
HT: Ramirez
A big part of the problem Obama faces is that if he's forthright about where he stands on most issues facing the country, he won't have much of a chance of winning in November. He likes to say that a McCain presidency will amount to a third George Bush term, but Obama looks very much like he would give us a second term of Jimmy Carter.
RLC
