Political Review - realoutlook.com

Tuesday nights Democratic Presidential Debate in Ohio began with MSNBC’s Brian Williams confronting Senator Hillary Clinton about her change in tone from being “honored” to be sharing the stage with Obama in their last debate to her statement “shame on you Barack Obama” within the following 48 hours. Hillary replied that the change was brought on by Obama’s misrepresentation regarding her health care proposals and position on the North American Free Trade Agreeement [NAFTA]. These tactics are not unlike those perpetrated by Senator John McCain and Governor Mike Huckabee against Governor Mitt Romney. Obama would point out the same had been committed by the Clinton camp against him. But, while there is very little difference in nearly all their positions, Clinton continually points to the fact Obama’s universal health care policy would leave out millions of people who can’t afford it. Obama reiterated his question as to what penalties Hillary would impose and how she would enforce mandatory coverage. It’s never asked if this is what the American people really want. They never talk about how to reduce medical costs only how to finance it.

Williams would move on framing a question about NAFTA in light of its shortcomings in Ohio directed to Hillary who abruptly, and perhaps quite fairly, injected “… in the last several debates I seem to get the first question all the time?” Alluding to the media bias favoring her opponent she referenced a recent Saturday Night Live skit that mocked a CNN Democratic debate stating “… maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs a pillow.”

[Note: We had originally embedded video of the skit here. If there is any doubt about NBC's favorite in this race, the full video of the SNL skit has since been removed from YouTube. MSNBC, NBC, CNN have all decided on Obama and are doing what they can to frame our political choices to their liking.]

The debate moved to foreign policy where Williams would direct the first question to Barack restating some of Clinton’s comments about his lack of experience in foreign policy. As is always the case Obama would criticize Bush policies rather than define policies for the future. As with most issues Obama calls for change, criticizes Clinton’s positions when they differ from his as the “same old Washington” approach and blames everything else on Bush / Cheney, always calling Iraq ill conceived. Hillary would remind us that, while Barack was not yet a Senator when the decision was made to go into Iraq, he has voted the same as her including subsequent war funding bills. She would continue reminding us that last summer it was Obama who called for the bombing of the frontier regions of our sovereign ally, Pakistan, to hit al Qaeda strongholds. Obama would reply “I never said I would bomb Pakistan” when in fact he did. Both Williams and Tim Russert would let that slide. Tim Russert would cut Hillary off when she tried to respond, with a question about Iraq.

Obama has called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. Troops from Iraq. Since last summer his position has come more to reflect Hillary’s calling for a scheduled withdrawal with the council of U.S. Command and the Iraqi government. Recalling Obama’s continuing evasion of Iraq in favor of action in Afghanistan Hillary, reminded us that Obama is on the Senate Foreign Relations committee where he chairs the subcommittee on Europe which oversees NATO activities in that country. He has yet to hold hearings regarding US / NATO policies there. Obama response was “Well, first of all, I became chairman of this committee at the beginning of this campaign, at the beginning of 2007. So it is true that we haven’t had oversight hearings on Afghanistan.” The Senate Foreign Relations Committee did, in fact, hold hearings on Afghanistan last month while Barack was in California for Democratic debates there. When Hillary tried to follow up she was cut off by Brian Williams to go to a break.

In another segment on foreign policy, Tim Russert hoped to trap Hillary by asking her the name of Russian President Putin’s successor. She stumbled with the name but eventually uttered something resembling Medvedev, then stated his tenure would be a continuation of Putin’s government. Russert then turned to Obama asking what he knew about Medvedevs policies. Obama, again, agreed with what Hillary had said then went on to criticize Bush for his trust of Putin without uttering anything new about the Russian successor. This is a man on the Senate Foreign Relations committee. Medvedev served on the board of the government controlled energy company, Gazprom, to which former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder has become an officer of. And that company is building an expensive pipeline directly to Germany through the Baltic Sea circumventing Eastern Europe allowing Russia to penalize the former Soviet states for their insolence. So while he criticizes Bush again and again it’s seems he is doing little when it comes to the tasks he has at hand or little knowledge on what it is that needs to be done.

In the end, both think we should emulate European practices and avoid any criticism, particularly their embracing of socialized medicine and multiculturalism. Both practices are exacting a heavy toll on European society with the breakdown of their health care systems and ever increasing violence in ethnic communities that refuse to assimilate and demand their cultural values be adheared to rather than those of the host country. And the level of corruption, exemplified by Schroder’s compact with Putin is something an American would be prosecuted for. Before we imbrace “Change” we need to know what it is. And Barack doesn’t want to tell us!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Election. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.