Obama Receives South Carolina Newspaper Endorsement

The State (South Carolina) has endorsed Barack Obama, concluding:

Sen. Obama’s campaign is an argument for a more unifying style of leadership. In a time of great partisanship, he is careful to talk about winning over independents and even Republicans. He is harsh on the failures of the current administration – and most of that critique well-deserved. But he doesn’t use his considerable rhetorical gifts to demonize Republicans. He’s not neglecting his core values; he defends his progressive vision with vigorous integrity. But for him, American unity – transcending party – is a core value in itself.

Can such unity be restored, in this poisonous political culture? Not unless that is a nominee’s goal from the outset. It will be a difficult challenge for any candidate; but we wait in the hope that someone really will try. There is no other hope for rescuing our republic from the mire.

Sen. Obama would also have the best chance to repair the damage to America’s global reputation. A leader with his biography – including his roots in Africa and his years spent growing up overseas – could transform the world’s view of America. He would seize that opportunity.

He would close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, which has damaged America’s moral standing, and strive to rebuild many diplomatic relationships.

Despite America’s bitter partisan divide, all sides should agree on this: In such an environment, little gets done. Congress has been largely useless under both Republican and Democratic leadership. Setting aside the ideological conflict for conflict’s sake to get anything worthwhile done has fallen severely out of fashion.

And America certainly has things to get done.

From terrorism and climate change to runaway federal entitlement spending, there are big challenges to be faced. Sen. Obama is the only Democrat who plausibly can say that he wants to work with Americans across the political spectrum to address such subjects – and he has the integrity and the skills of persuasion that make him the best-qualified among the remaining Democratic hopefuls to address these challenges.

He would be a groundbreaking nominee. More to the point, he makes a solid case that he is ready to lead the whole country. We see Sen. Barack Obama as the best choice in Saturday’s Democratic primary.

Eric Zorn Exposes Clinton Lies

Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn also argues that The Clintons are Lying About Obama’s Remarks on Reagan. Don’t miss his quiz at the end.

(Barack) Obama stopped just short of calling (Hillary) Clinton and her husband liars… from the Swamp’s live blog of last night’s Democratic debate.

Hillary Clinton, Jan 18: Hmm. I see no reason to stop short. Bill and Hillary Clinton have lied brazenly about Obama’s recent statement about Ronald Reagan.

Let’s look at the transcripts (emphasis added):

Hillary Clinton, Jan 18:

My leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last 10 to 15 years.

Bill Clinton, Jan 18:

(My wife’s) principal opponent said that since 1992, the Republicans have had all the good ideas….I’m not making this up, folks.

Well, yes he is. The key, inflammatory words in the Clintons’ quotes are better and good, and I invite you, reader, to find it in these transcripts of what Obama has actually said:

I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that for example the 1980’s were different.

I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.

I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

I think Kennedy, twenty years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times.

I think we’re in one of those times right now. Where people feel like things as they are going aren’t working. We’re bogged down in the same arguments that we’ve been having, and they’re not useful.

And, you know, the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out.

I think it’s fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last ten, fifteen years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.

Read it all again if you want, you won’t find “better” or “good” in there, or synonyms or implications along those lines.

When the Clintons used “better” and “good” in alluding the Obama’s remarks, they weren’t paraphrasing, they weren’t misremembering, they weren’t distorting. They were simply lying.

Obama’s observations — self-serving as they certainly were — focused on the ability of a leader with overarching vision and good communication skills to lead and inspire the country; the importance of “ideas” as opposed to 10-point programs for presidents who want to bring about real change.

Reagan frustrates and angers many on the left to this day because all these years later we still can’t believe that an amiable, genial movie actor was able to sell his version of reality to a majority of the American public. The Clintons seem to be hoping they can tap into that lingering anger and frustration by lying about Obama’s views on Reagan.

Can they not help themselves? Do they not know that not to understand Reagan, not to learn from him and not to emulate him in some ways is a path to political defeat?

In conclusion, let me ask you to take my little quiz, which I’ve put together with the help of archival quotes supplied by the Obama campaign. Which of the four statements below is Obama’s, and which are the Clintons’?

1. [Reagan was] a child of the Depression, so he understood [economic pressures on the working and middle class]. When he had those big tax cuts and they went too far, he oversaw the largest tax increase. He could call the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and then negotiate arms-control agreements. He played the balance and the music beautifully.

2 When I think about great presidents, I think about those who transform how we think about ourselves as a country in fundamental ways…And, you know, there are circumstances in which, I would argue, Ronald Reagan was a very successful president, even though I did not agree with him on many issues, partly because at the end of his presidency, people, I think, said, “You know what? We can regain our greatness. Individual responsibility and personal responsibility are important.” And they transformed the culture and not simply promoted one or two particular issues.

3. [I feel Reagan’s] unflagging optimism, his proud patriotism, his unabashed faith in the American people…. I am confident that we will again make the right choices for America, that we will take up where President Reagan left off — to lead freedom’s march boldly into the 21st century.

4. The Democratic presidential candidate who has tried to differentiate [herself/himself] by tacking to the center on some key issues, said yesterday that former president Ronald Reagan’s defense buildup had hastened the collapse of Soviet communism. Breaking with the widespread position of liberals that Reagan’s military program had little to do with the Soviet system’s collapse, the candidate also praised Reagan’s “rhetoric in defense of freedom” and his role in “advancing the idea that communism could be rolled back.” {The candidate} was careful to add that the Reagan military program included “a lot of wasted money and unnecessary expenditure.” Still, {the candidate} said, Reagan deserved credit for “the idea that he wanted to stand up to {Communism}”

Answers

1. Hillary Clinton, quoted in Tom Brokaw’s book “Boom,” page 404.

2. Barack Obama on “Meet the Press” in October of 2006

3. Bill Clinton Dedication of Reagan Library, 5/5/98]

4. Bill Clinton as paraphrased by the Washington Post on 10/17/91 Washington Post

Jake Tapper of ABC news blogs on the above: What’s factually not accurate is what President Bill Clinton said. I know he wants his wife to beat Obama. And it seems that unleashing the Big Dog seems to be working for the Clinton campaign. Perhaps some voters are even touched by his passion. But let’s be clear — Bill Clinton is spreading demonstrably false information. There’s winning ugly, and there’s winning with honor.

Why Bill Clinton Has Spent The Last Several Days Spreading Lies

As I just posted, Factcheck.org has supported Obama in debunking the falsifications from Hillary Clinton on the Ronald Reagan matter in last night’s debate. Earlier in the day Eugene Robinson had similar comments defending Obama while also suggesting why Bill Clinton might be so upset:

Obama’s candidacy not only threatens to obliterate the dream of a Clinton Restoration. It also fundamentally calls into question Bill Clinton’s legacy by making it seem . . . not really such a big deal.

That, I believe, is the unforgivable insult. The Clintons picked up on this slight well before Obama made it explicit with his observation that Ronald Reagan had “changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.”

Let’s take a moment to consider that remark. Whether it was advisable for Obama to play the role of presidential historian in the midst of a no-holds-barred contest for the Democratic nomination, it’s hard to argue with what he said. I think Bill Clinton was a good president, at times very good. And I wouldn’t have voted for Reagan if you’d held a gun to my head. But even I have to recognize that Reagan — like Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union — was a transformational figure, for better or worse.

Bill Clinton’s brilliance was in the way he surveyed the post-Reagan landscape and figured out how to redefine and reposition the Democratic Party so that it became viable again. All the Democratic candidates who are running this year, including Obama, owe him their gratitude.

But Obama has set his sights higher, and implicit in his campaign is a promise, or a threat, to eclipse Clinton’s accomplishments. Obama doesn’t just want to piece together a 50-plus-1 coalition; he wants to forge a new post-partisan consensus that includes “Obama Republicans” — the equivalent of the Gipper’s “Reagan Democrats.” You can call that overly ambitious or even naive, but you can’t call it timid. Or deferential.

Perhaps Bill is just angry about coming out behind Reagan, and potentially Obama, in one comparison. Dick Morris has a different interpretation, seeing this as part of his strategy to help Hillary get elected:

He has two goals and is achieving them both spectacularly.

First, he wants to be the same kind of lightning rod for Hillary that she was for him during his run for the presidency.

As the 1992 Republican convention approached, Hillary ratcheted up her comments and profile precisely to attract GOP fire so that they would leave Bill alone…
In the days before Iowa and leading up to New Hampshire, Hillary was the prime topic of political discussion.She took shots for misusing Bill’s record and trying to adopt it as her own, for minimizing King’s contribution to civil rights, for crying, for attacking her opponents, and for changing her campaign style to become more likeable.

Now, she rarely gets hit anymore. They’re hitting Bill instead.

Like a red cape, he is attracting the attention of the bull so his wife the matador escapes unharmed.

The other method behind his madness is that Bill wants to suck up all the oxygen in the room and dominate the coverage of the Democratic contest. By doing so, he cuts Obama out of the news, pushes him off the front page, and usurps the headlines.

The question is whether Obama is really getting cut out of the news, or if the story of the election has become the dishonesty of the Clinton campaign. Yet another account of their deception is provided by Miles Mogulescu who hits many of the same points I’ve discussed the last few days. It might come down to whether these disputes distract from Obama’s message or whether they become seen as evidence that Obama is right in calling for change. The Clintons are hoping that simply dominating the news with attacks will work to their advantage. If the attacks are analyzed and their dishonesty is exposed, the Clintons are providing an excellent reason why they should not be returned to the White House.

Factcheck.org Verifies Obama Side of the Reagan Controversy

Factcheck.org has reviewed the debates and, as usual, found that all the candidates made statements which can be questioned. The ones which were the most significant regarded the distortions of Obama’s statement on Ronald Reagan by Hillary Clinton. This includes two distortions, the first regarding Obama and Republican ideas.

Clinton attacked Obama for supposedly supporting Republican ideas, which she said included federal deficits and “privatizing” Social Security:

Clinton: [He] has said in the last week that he really liked the ideas of the Republicans over the last 10 to 15 years, and we can give you the exact quote. … They were ideas like privatizing Social Security, like moving back from a balanced budget and a surplus to deficit and debt.

Obama pushed back, saying he had never endorsed such notions:

Clinton: [You] talked about the Republicans having ideas over the last 10 to 15 years.
Obama: I didn’t say they were good ones.
Clinton: Well, you can read the context of it.
Obama: Well, I didn’t say they were good ones. …
Clinton: It certainly came across in the way that it was presented…

We can’t speak to how things “came across” to Clinton, but we’ve listened to the entire interview and to our ears, it’s just flatly false that Obama said he “really liked the ideas of the Republicans.” Clinton is referring to what Obama told the editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal. A video is available on the Internet.

Here’s what Obama actually said in the portion to which Clinton referred:

Obama (Jan. 14, 2008): The Republican approach has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you’ve heard it all before. You look at the economic policies when they’re being debated among the presidential candidates, it’s all tax cuts. Well, we know, we’ve done that; we’ve tried it. That’s not really going to solve our energy problems, for example.

There’s a difference between praising someone for having ideas and praising the idea itself. Obama is doing the former – and just as clearly not doing the latter. He says the GOP approach has “played itself out,” for example.

It’s also false to imply – as Clinton did – that Obama endorsed Republican proposals to set up private Social Security accounts or that he praised deficit spending. We listened to the entire 49-minute interview, and Obama said no such thing.

The second issue regards the following quote from Obama’s interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal:

I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I mean, I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path, because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the ’60s and the ’70s, you know government had grown and grown, but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating, and I think people just tapped into – he tapped into what people were already feeling, which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism, and, and, you know, entrepreneurship that had been missing.

I think Kennedy, 20 years earlier, moved the country in a fundamentally different direction. So I think a lot of it just has to do with the times. I think we’re in one of those times right now, where people feels like things as they are going right now aren’t working, that we’re bogged down in the same arguments that we’ve been having, and they’re not useful. And the Republican approach, I think, has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.

Now, you’ve heard it all before. You look at the economic policies when they’re being debated among the presidential candidates, it’s all tax cuts. Well, we know, we’ve done that; we’ve tried it. That’s not really going to solve our energy problems, for example.

Factcheck commented on the charges that Obama was praising Reagan:

Obama also has been taking heat for praising Ronald Reagan in that same interview. See the text box to the left for his exact words. Clinton tried to avoid mentioning that, for good reason, but Obama turned it against her anyway:

Obama: The irony of this is that you provided much more fulsome praise of Ronald Reagan in a book by Tom Brokaw that’s being published right now, as did – as did Bill Clinton in the past. So these are the kinds of political games that we are accustomed to.

Obama is correct: Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have lauded Reagan’s political skills. Tom Brokaw’s “Boom! Voices of the Sixties” quotes Clinton as saying that Reagan was “a child of the Depression” who understood pressures on the working and middle class:

Hillary Clinton (in Brokaw book): When he had those big tax cuts and they went too far, he oversaw the largest tax increase. He could call the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and then negotiate arms-control agreements. He played the balance and the music beautifully.

And here’s Bill Clinton in 1998 at the dedication of the Reagan Building in Washington, D.C.:

Bill Clinton (May 5, 1998): The only thing that could make this day more special is if President Reagan could be here himself. But if you look at this atrium, I think we feel the essence of his presence: his unflagging optimism, his proud patriotism, his unabashed faith in the American people. I think every American who walks through this incredible space and lifts his or her eyes to the sky will feel that.

We’ll leave it to others to decide who’s praising Reagan more. The fact is that Bill and Hillary have done it, not just Obama.

Jane Roe Endorses Ron Paul

First Read reports on an endorsement for Ron Paul:

On the 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling, Norma McCorvey (a.k.a. “Jane Roe,” who later changed her views on abortion in the mid-90s) gave Paul her official endorsement today.

“I support Ron Paul for president because we share the same goal, that of overturning Roe v. Wade. He has never wavered on the issue of being pro-life and has a voting record to prove it. He understands the importance of civil liberties for all, including the unborn,” she said at a press conference in Washington this morning.

For those who support Ron Paul believing he is pro-freedom but look the other way with regards to his opposition to abortion rights, Paul’s response makes it clear that he really means it:

Paul accepted the pro-life activist’s endorsement, saying of abortion: “It is still one of the most crucial issues of our day that we deal with this. As much as I talk about economic liberties, and civil liberties, and trying to avoid the killing overseas, I think the issue of life is paramount.”

Fact Checking the South Carolina Debate

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD9F1t9GQzA]

The South Carolina debate got heated (as seen in the above video) but primarily covered material which has already been discussed in recent posts. I’ll briefly summarize some of the key controversies with links to further material. (Obama also responded to similar issues on Good Morning America with video posted here. Many of these issues were also reviewed by The Washington Post, which I discussed in this post.)

Ronald Reagan

The controversy began after Obama’s comments in this interview were distorted as discussed here. Also noted is that Hillary Clinton is on record for making comments more favorable about Ronald Reagan than anything Obama actually said. John Edwards’ contribution to the Ronald Reagan fan club is posted here. Obama explained what he actually said here. The key point is that Obama was speaking about Reagan’s role as a transformative president. He spoke of Republican ideas, but did not say he supported these ideas as his rivals have falsely claimed. The actual interview contains a number of ideas which are quite different from anything Ronald Reagan would have advocated.

Voting Present

Voting present is a common practice in the Illinois legislature and the meaning of this has been distorted by Clinton as I previously discussed here. The American Prospect called this attack a recycled Republican talking point. While some of the votes involved abortion rights, Political Radar noted that “We at Planned Parenthood view those as leadership votes.” The New York Times further described the use of voting present in the Illinois Legislature. The Chicago Tribune explained how “Disparagement of Obama votes doesn’t hold up.”

Iraq

Clinton tries to down play the significance of Obama’s opposition to the war before it started while Clinton supported the war. What really matters is who had the better judgment in knowing whether to go to war, with Obama realizing it was a mistake. Comparing their votes once they were both in the Senate only confuses the issue by comparing apples and oranges. The decision to go to war had already been made by the time Obama was in the Senate and Obama’s votes to fund the war did not signify that he supported the decision to go to war. Besides, Clinton can hardly argue that Obama’s votes on funding were wrong when she voted the same way. The question that matters, and the decision they differed on, is not these funding votes but the decision to go to war in the first place.

I’ve written more on Bill Clinton’s distortions of the issue here. Other aspects of the controversy are discussed in this post on John Kerry’s support for Obama. This includes why Obama played down the IWR vote before speaking at the 2004 Democratic Convention. Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have tried to claim that they also opposed the war, but the facts show otherwise. For example, the post also contrasts the views of John Kerry with Hillary Clinton noting that while both voted yes on the IWR, Kerry spoke out against going to war before the war started while Clinton did not express her opposition until much later, casting doubt on her rewriting of history.

Obama’s Health Care Plan

One defense of Obama’s health care plan came from former Clintonite Robert Reich, which I quoted here. Others such as The New York Times are quoted here. I used ideas used by the Medicare program to provide an example of how Obama’s plan could work without a mandate back in December. Obama made a similar argument later in the month. Obama’s success in achieving health reform in the Illinois legislature was discussed here.