Frank K Wrote: Thomas Walcom, writing for the Toronto Star on February 21st asks" "Is Obama a Closet Conservative?" Obama's visit to Canada appears to have been capitulation to Harper on climate change. And as Walcom points out, "Obama isn't backing away from Bush's decision to define terrorism as war, a crucial label that gives the president constitutional authority to operate with few Congressional constraints. The key difference is that the new president wants to shift the focus of that war to Afghanistan." Furthermore, the Obama administration has "quietly indicated that it plans to continue the practice of so-called extraordinary rendition: capturing suspected terrorists anywhere in the world and shipping them off to countries such as Egypt to be tortured." Obama will be under the microscope in the next four years and these are some of the issues that he should be judged on.
Listening Wrote: Well, I said for many months (about six months prior to the completion of the primary) that Obama sounded like a good republican. Then he went in the other direction. How, you could call him a closet conservative after healthcare is beyond me. BTW: I was against the war before it started, still am, and wish we would get the hell out !
I will add a few opinions on these issues. First on health care, I didn't call Obama a closet conservative...that's what the article I was quoting said. But nevertheless to clarify, the far left wanted a single payer system (Medicare for all), but in practical terms, it would have essentially made the insurance companies redundant and add significantly to unemployment, although I'm sure many could have hired on as Medicare type administrators at lower pay without massive bonuses .
Obama didn't push for a single payer system. He didn't even actively push for a public option, much to the chagrin of liberals like me. Instead the ObamaCare that we ended up with is close to RomneyCare for Massachusetts and what Republicans had sought as a compromise for HillaryCare in the early 1990s. So with respect to health care reform, Obama's position is very close to what conservatives have advocated in the past (when the Republican Party was more moderate) and what Romney oversaw in Massachusetts. How anyone can say that ObamaCare qualifies as a "government takeover of health care" is beyond me, especially when it was okay with Republicans not too long ago.
On the subject of war, Obama is following the time table for Iraq withdrawal agreed between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government. Liberals would have liked to see him exit earlier. And in Afghanistan he is doing what he said he would...finishing the job left unattended by Bush/Cheney. However, again for many of us anti-war liberals, we would rather have seen him withdraw from Afghanistan than follow the Pentagon plan for victory...whatever that is. Since the Republicans are now the War Party (that used to be the Democrat's moniker under LBJ) one could say Obama's Iraq - Afghanistan policies are also more closely aligned with the right than with the left.
On climate change, liberals would like "full speed ahead" on alternative clean energy solutions while weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, coal in particular. While Obama is certainly a strong advocate for solar, wind and geothermal energy, in the short term at least he is not standing in the way of coal and oil companies activities. He has partially lifted the ban on offshore drilling first imposed in 1982 under Ronald Reagan and retained by every Congress and President up until George Bush finally rescinded his father's executive order as a last act before he left office (but that Obama re-imposed subject to more review). The oil companies are now getting the long sought after right to drill on the Atlantic seaboard and western Florida coast, something that has been denied them for 28 years.
So I still maintain that Obama is operating as a slightly left of center President, and hardly the "socialist" that right wing media and politicians make him out to be. I'll concede that his philosophies are further left, but he is also a pragmatist, and realizes that he had to move closer to the center to govern. My opinions.
Frank K Wrote: Listening Wrote: So I still maintain that Obama is operating as a slightly left of center President, and hardly the "socialist" that right wing media and politicians make him out to be. I'll concede that his philosophies are further left, but he is also a pragmatist, and realizes that he had to move closer to the center to govern. My opinions. I definetly agree with you.
Listening Wrote: So I still maintain that Obama is operating as a slightly left of center President, and hardly the "socialist" that right wing media and politicians make him out to be. I'll concede that his philosophies are further left, but he is also a pragmatist, and realizes that he had to move closer to the center to govern. My opinions.