OBAMA REALITY CHECK

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

OBAMA REALITY CHECK

FRANK JAMES, CHICAGO TRIBUNE - There's the new Harper's magazine cover
story [BY Ken Silverstein] whose essential point appears to be that the
junior senator from Illinois is really shaping up to be a tool of the
monied interest. . . Here's a taste of the article which is captured in
its last couple of sentences. "On condition of anonymity, one Washington
lobbyist I spoke with was willing to point out the obvious: that big
donors would not be helping out Obama if they didn't see him as a
'player.' The lobbyist added: 'What's the dollar value of a starry-eyed
idealist?' "

Very little, is the answer both the lobbyist and Silverstein imply.
Obama has raised a lot of money from such lobbyists so draw your own
conclusions, the article seems to say.

A lot of lobbyists have contributed to Obama's campaign and political
action committee for the same reason a lot of non-lobbyists are
energized by him--he's smart and charismatic, Silverstein suggests. . .

Obama voted against the overall bill which was supported by the
financial-services industry. But he sided with the industry on certain
proposals. For instance, he opposed a proposal that would have capped
credit-card interest rates at 30 percent, a limit that was sought by
consumer groups. . .

Silverstein also noted the senator's push for the increased use of
alternative fuels like ethanol to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil
and help reduce carbon emissions. That seems a mighty environmentally
friendly and national-security conscious position to take. But remember
that Illinois is a big producer of corn, from which ethanol is made, and
is home to agribusiness giants Archer Daniels Midland and Aventine
Renewable Energy, Silverstein says, the implication being that Obama is
doing agribusiness's bidding in order to keep raising big money. He has
raised more than $21 million since he announced his run for the U.S.
Senate, Silverstein tells us. . .

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2006/10/is_the_obama_ho.html


KEN SILVERSTEIN, HARPER'S - Since announcing his candidacy for the
Illinois Senate seat, Obama has raised the astonishing sum of nearly $21
million and has built close relationships with a number of traditional
fat-cat donors. For example, one of Obama's leading career patrons is
Skadden, Arps ($53,271, according to the most recent disclosure
filings), a leading corporate law firm and one of the biggest donors to
the Democratic Party.

Several of the firm's lawyers donated money to Obama and also helped
raise money for him as well. That includes Christina Tchen, a corporate
litigator at Skadden who has represented major financial firms in
consumer class-action suits. . .

In November of last year, three other Skadden attorneys helped organize
a fundraiser for Obama's Leadership PAC, the vehicle he uses to support
other Democratic candidates, and to boost his own political profile and
gain support within the party. . . Others who have helped raise funds
for Obama's Leadership PAC include John Gorman of Texas-based Tejas
Securities, a major funder of Senate Democrats (and of the Bush
presidential campaigns) and Winston & Strawn, the Chicago-based law and
lobbying firm. Individual contributors to Obama include some of the
best-connected lobbyists in town, including Jeffrey Peck (whose clients
include MasterCard, the Business Roundtable, and the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce) and Rich Tarplin (Chevron, the American Petroleum Institute,
and the National Association of Manufacturers).

In the magazine article, I asserted that Obama is not a mouthpiece for
his donors; neither does his voting record mirrors the wishes of his
contributor list. But, as I suggested, it's naive to think that he's
completely unaware of who's footing the bills. Exelon, a leading
nuclear-plant operator based in Illinois, is a big donor to Obama, and
its executive and employees have given him more than $70,000 since 2004.
The Obama staffer pointed out that the senator pushed for legislation
that would require nuclear companies to "inform state and local
officials if there is an accidental or unintentional leak of a
radioactive substance," according to an office press release. Obama took
a stand on that issue following reports that a plant operated by Exelon
had leaked tritium several times over the past decade.

But Exelon is probably not entirely unhappy with Obama. At a 2005
hearing at the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, of which
Obama is a member, the senator-echoing the nuclear industry's current
campaign to promotes nuclear energy as "green" - said that since
Congress was debating "policies to address air quality and the
deleterious effects of carbon emissions on the global ecosystem, it is
reasonable - and realistic - for nuclear power to remain on the table
for consideration." He was immediately lauded by the industry
publication Nuclear Notes, which said, "Back during his campaign for the
U.S. Senate in 2004, [Obama] said that he rejected both liberal and
conservative labels in favor of 'common sense solutions.' And when it
comes to nuclear energy, it seems like the Senator is keeping an open
mind."

To anyone who thinks Obama is blissfully oblivious to the fundraising
imperative, consider the following: in one of his earliest votes as a
senator, Obama helped pass a class-action "reform" bill that was a
long-standing and cherished goal of business groups. (The bill was the
focus of a significant lobbying effort by financial firms, who
constitute Obama's second-biggest single bloc of donors.). . .

http://www.harpers.org/sb-a-little-bit-more-on-obama-1161881683.html

DERRICK Z. JACKSON, BOSTON GLOBE, AUG 2007 - It is unclear if Barack
Obama's caution precedes consensus or cave-in. Asked if he would
eliminate discriminatory laws that punish crack cocaine possession so
heavily that it would take 100 times more in powder cocaine for the same
sentence, Obama started off by saying the law was a mistake. He talked
about his record in the Illinois Senate.

"I want to point out that I fought provisions like this and in many
cases voted against provisions like this, knowing the way they could be
exploited politically," Obama told the Trotter Group of African-American
newspaper columnists last week after addressing the National Association
of Black Journalists. "I thought it was the right thing to do. Even
though the politics of it was tough back in the '90s, as a state
legislator I took some tough votes to make sure we didn't see the
perpetration of these kinds of unjust laws.". . .

Vacillation became evident as he kept talking about crack-vs.-powder
sentencing, which has come to symbolize racial injustice in criminal
justice. He said that if he were to become president, he would support a
commission to issue a report "that allows me to say that based on the
expert evidence, this is not working and it's unfair and unjust. Then I
would move legislation forward."

That was a puzzling statement because the US Sentencing Commission,
created by Congress in 1984, has long said the system is not working and
reaffirmed in April that the 100-to-1 ratio "significantly undermines"
sentencing reform.

[Just four months later, the extremely conservative Supreme Court moved
where Obama waffled, as reported by Reuters]
REUTERS - U.S. judges can impose lighter prison sentences than federal
guidelines specify, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in cases involving
crack cocaine and ecstacy that could add pressure to overhaul sentencing
practices. In a racially sensitive issue, the justices overturned a U.S.
appeals court ruling that judges cannot hand down a lighter punishment
simply because they disagree with wide disparities for crack and powder
cocaine sentences. Blacks account for about 80 percent of the federal
crack cocaine convictions. The guidelines call for lighter prison terms
for the sale of powder cocaine, a drug more popular with whites and
Hispanics.
NEDRA PICKLER, ASSOCIATED PRESS - Democratic presidential candidate
Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would possibly send troops into
Pakistan to hunt down terrorists, an attempt to show strength when his
chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive. The
Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that
he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and
evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk
a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S.
military aid.

"Let me make this clear," Obama said in a speech prepared for delivery
at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "There are
terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans.
They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to
act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in
2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist
targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070801/ap_on_el_pr/obama_terrorism_7

[Apparently Obama doesn't think George Bush's illegalities are all that
bad]

AP JUNE 2007 - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama laid out
list of political shortcomings he sees in the Bush administration but
said he opposes impeachment for either President George W. Bush or Vice
President Dick Cheney. . . "I think you reserve impeachment for grave,
grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the president's authority,"
he said.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/28/america/NA-POL-US-Obama-No-Impeachment.php


[We have suggested that Obama's foreign policy was nowhere near as
liberal as many liberals believed. This view was confirmed by the
Washington Post's conservative editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt]

FRED HIATT, WASHINGTON POST - [Barack Obama and Mitt Romney] have laid
out their foreign policy visions in parallel articles, released prior to
publication in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs. And after you
cut through some of their campaign rhetoric, here's what you find:

(1) The two candidates' programs are strikingly similar to each other.

(2) Both are strikingly similar to Bush administration policy.

(3) And both, far from retreating to isolationism in the face of Iraq
and other challenges, set forth their own wildly ambitious calls for
American leadership and the promotion of American values. "Boldness" is
an operative word for both of them.

Obama begins: "After Iraq, we may be tempted to turn inward. That would
be a mistake. The American moment is not over, but it must be seized
anew."

Romney writes: "In the aftermath of World War II and with the coming of
the Cold War, members of the 'greatest generation' united America and
the free world around shared values and actions that changed history. .
. . Our times call for equally bold leadership."

The two differ in some respects, of course. Romney puts more emphasis on
combating radical Islam and less on promoting freedom. Obama dwells more
on Bush's failures and the value of diplomacy and endorses a "phased
withdrawal" of U.S. troops from Iraq. But even there, the differences
are not as stark as the candidates would like them to appear. Obama
would maintain in Iraq enough troops "to protect American personnel and
facilities, continue training Iraqi security forces, and root out al
Qaeda."

And the similarities dwarf the differences. Both want bigger, not
smaller, armed forces: Obama calls for an additional 92,000 ground
troops, Romney for 100,000.

Obama calls for a doubling of foreign aid; Romney wants a Marshall
Plan-like "Partnership for Prosperity and Progress" that would support
schools, microcredit, the rule of law, human rights, health care and the
free market in Islamic states.

Romney says that "the jihadist threat is the defining challenge of our
generation," as real as the threat that was posed by Nazi Germany and
Stalin's Soviet Union, and he promises an appropriately sized response.
Obama, albeit using slightly different terms, agrees: "To defeat al
Qaeda, I will build a twenty-first-century military and
twenty-first-century partnerships as strong as the anticommunist
alliance that won the Cold War to stay on the offense everywhere from
Djibouti to Kandahar.". . .

In both cases, the criticism is not that Bush took on too much but that
he accomplished too little. "We are a unique nation, and there is no
substitute for our leadership," says Romney. Agrees Obama: "We can be
this America again. . . . [A]n America that battles immediate evils,
promotes an ultimate good, and leads the world once more."

If Iraq-weary voters are looking for someone who will call on America to
"come home," they won't find that candidate here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/03/AR2007060300951.html


CHICAGO TRIBUNE - One evening in February 2005, in a four-hour meeting
stoked by pepperoni pizza and grand ambition, Sen. Barack Obama and his
senior advisers crafted a strategy to fit the Obama "brand.". . . Some
called it the "2010-2012-2016" plan: a potential bid for governor or
re-election to the Senate in 2010, followed by a bid for the White House
as soon as 2012 or, if not, 2016. The way to get there, they decided,
was by carefully building a record that matched the brand identity:
Obama as unifier and consensus-builder, an almost post-political leader.

The staffers in that after-hours session, convened by Obama's Senate
staff and including Chicago political adviser David Axelrod, planned a
low-profile strategy that would emphasize workhorse results over
headlines. Obama would invest in his long-term profile by not seeming
too eager for the bright lights. . .

Throughout his time in the Senate, Obama has followed a cautious path,
avoiding any severe political bruises. Even before the national mood was
turning on Iraq, Obama was a critic of the war, but for most of his time
in the Senate he was not a strong voice in opposition. Similarly, the
former civil rights attorney and University of Chicago law lecturer did
not take to the bully pulpit to speak out publicly on judicial
appointments. His strategy called for him to turn away from the cameras
when he might otherwise have been a resonant voice. . .

The plan they hatched focused on concrete, achievable goals that
included delivering for Illinois, fitting in at the Senate and
developing cross-party alliances while avoiding the limelight. . .

To some liberals, [one] proposal was a no-brainer: a ceiling of 30
percent on interest rates for credit cards and other consumer debt. And
as he left his office to vote on it, Obama planned to support the
measure, which was being considered as an amendment to a major overhaul
of the nation's bankruptcy laws.

But when the amendment came up for a vote, Obama was standing next to
Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.), the senior Democrat on the banking committee
and the leader of those opposing the landmark bill, which would make it
harder for Americans to get rid of debt.

"You know, this is probably not a smart amendment for us to vote for,"
Obama recalled Sarbanes telling him. "Thirty percent is sort of a random
number."

Obama joined Sarbanes in voting against the amendment, but they lost the
larger battle when the new bankruptcy law passed by a lopsided 74-25.
There remains no federal ceiling on credit card interest rates.

Obama's deferral to Sarbanes was just one example of the freshman
senator learning to navigate a chamber famous for its egos. . .

Obama the candidate for U.S. Senate spoke out forcefully against the
Iraq war. For most of his tenure in Washington, though, Obama the U.S.
senator has not been a moving force on Iraq.

He left it to others to lead public opinion. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.)
and Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) emerged as the strongest voices against the
war. Those critics all spoke out before Obama gave his first major
policy speech on the war -- 11 months after he took office.

Several advisers said that during that time Obama wrestled with how to
proceed, concerned about the worsening news from Iraq and convinced the
public's mood was turning against the war more rapidly than most members
of Congress appreciated. . .

Ultimately Obama delivered a more modest speech in November 2005, five
days after Murtha's call for a troop withdrawal. In that address, he
called for reductions in U.S. troop strength but not a timetable for
withdrawal.

In a Senate debate the following June, Obama voted against an amendment
proposed by Feingold and former presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry
(D-Mass.) to set such a timetable.

Only after Obama announced his presidential exploratory committee did he
introduce legislation this January that sets a date for withdrawal of
U.S. combat troops. By then the high-profile, bipartisan Iraq Study
Group also had endorsed a deadline for troops to leave.

In May he voted against continued funding of the war, after Bush vetoed
a funding package that included a timetable for withdrawal by March 31,
2008. . .

BILL FLETCHER, BLACK COMMENTATORMAY 2007 ,  - Senator Barack Obama has
become a major celebrity, a truth that is now almost a cliche. . . Yet
before I jump into his campaign, I have a few questions that I first
want to share with you and which I hope he will address in the
not-too-distant future.

There is a way in which I cannot tell who is the real Senator Obama. For
one, he has not carved out - at least as of this writing - any cutting
edge issues where he is taking the lead and defining the terrain.
Second, and to some extent more troubling, he permits people to see and
assume in him what they want to see and assume. I have said to many of
my friends that this situation reminds me of an episode from the
original Star Trek series where there was a creature that appears to the
viewer the way the viewer would like to see it.

I am, to add to this, very uneasy about some of the Senator's foreign
policy pronouncements, particularly with regard to the Middle East. To
his credit, he opposed the Iraq invasion and had the courage to say so.
Yet over the last year, he has displayed a peculiarly uncritical stance
when it comes to Israel and has all-but-ignored the plight of the
Palestinians. This past summer, when Israel launched its massive and
deadly assault on Lebanon, the Senator was quite vocal in his support.
He seemed to miss the Israeli use of illegal cluster bombs and the lies
the Israelis offered for their unapologetic destruction of entire
Lebanese civilian communities.

Further, the Senator seems to ignore the atrocious conditions being
faced by the Palestinians who, after all, are occupied by the Israelis
in violation of United Nations' resolutions. . . Compounding this odd
situation, the Senator seems to want to be a "hawk" when it comes to
Iran, describing that country as a threat to Israel and the USA. . .

I am not ready to write off the inspiring Senator from the great State
of Illinois, but no matter how hard I try, I keep thinking about that
creature from Star Trek.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/229/229_cover_questions_for_obama_fletcher_ed_bd.html


THE HILL, APRIL 2007 -  Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has pledged to create
a new brand of politics in the Democratic presidential primary by
rejecting contributions from lobbyists and political action committees
(PAC), but his fundraising records show that he relies on donors with
special interests.

Three of Obama's top fundraisers, who each have raised more than $50,000
for his campaign since January, were registered as lobbyists last year,
according to reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records. In
2006, Alan Solomont of Solomont Bailis Ventures earned $90,000 in
lobbying income; Tom Reed, of Kirkland & Ellis, lobbied for the
Seismological Society of America, the Nanobusiness Alliance, and the
Airport Minority Advisory Council; and Scott Harris, of Harris,
Wiltshire & Grannis, represented Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Dell and
Sprint-Nextel.

All three Obama fundraisers have said they are no longer lobbyists,
although the public records office has not posted contract termination
reports for any of them.

Several other major Obama fundraisers also have histories of lobbying
government officials for a living. Thomas Perrelli was a lobbyist for
Jenner & Block as recently as 2005. Until 2003, when Obama was a member
of the Illinois Senate, Peter Bynoe was a registered state lobbyist
representing Boeing and other corporate interests, according to the
Illinois secretary of state. They have both raised at least $50,000 for
Obama's presidential bid, according to his campaign.

Frank Clark, chairman of Commonwealth Edison, helped lead a $2.2 million
congressional lobbying effort on nuclear research and waste disposal in
2000, according to a report under his name filed with the Senate. He
also raised more than $50,000 for Obama this year. He played an
important part trying to persuade state lawmakers to deregulate the
energy industry in Illinois.

All this may surprise Obama's supporters. In a fundraising e-mail sent
to supporters at the beginning of March, the candidate wrote that
Washington's special-interest industry is trying "to own our political
process and dictate our policies in Washington. We're not going to play
that game. We're not taking any contributions from Washington lobbyists
or political action committees. We're going to transform the political
process by bringing together hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans
to build a campaign."

ABC -  Barack Obama has often said he'd consider putting Republicans in
his cabinet and even bandied about names like Sens. Dick Lugar and Chuck
Hagel. He's a added a new name to the list of possible Republicans
cabinet members - Arnold Schwarzenegger. Obama regularly says he would
look to Republicans to fill out his cabinet if he was elected, but at a
town hall event in Manchester, N.H., he was pushed to name names. . .

Sen. Dick Lugar: "He's a Republicans who I worked with on issues of arms
control, wonderful guy. He is somebody I think embodies the tradition of
a bipartisan foreign policy that is sensible, that is not ideological,
that is based on the idea that we have to have some humility and
restraint in terms of our ability to project power around the world,"
Obama said about his Senate colleague.

Sen. Chuck Hagel: "A Vietnam vet, similar approach and somebody I
respect in a similar fashion," Obama added.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: "What (he's) doing on climate change in
California is very important and significant. There are things I don't
agree with him on, but he's taken leadership on a very difficult issue
and we haven't seen that kind of leadership in Washington," Obama said
of the California governor.

JOHN MCCORMICK, CHICAGO TRIBUNE - A soon-to-be-released biography about
Sen. Barack Obama portrays the Democratic presidential candidate as a
far more calculating politician than his most ardent supporters might
imagine. One such calculation was his much-heralded 2002 speech in
Chicago about the impending Iraq war, according to "Obama: From Promise
to Power," a nearly 400-page book by Tribune reporter David Mendell to
be released in August.

Obama gave the speech not just because of a desire to speak out about
the impending invasion, Mendell asserts, but also to curry favor with a
potential political patron, Bettylu Saltzman, a stalwart among Chicago's
liberal elite, and to also try to win over his future top political
adviser, David Axelrod, who was close to Saltzman.

"Obama, still an unannounced candidate for the U.S. Senate, did not
immediately agree [to speak at the rally],"according to an advance copy
obtained by the Tribune. "But he told Saltzman that he would think it
over."

After consulting with a political aide, the future candidate, who was
indeed personally opposed to the invasion, agreed to make the speech.

"Obama was trying to draw Axelrod onto his Senate campaign team," the
book says. "It would not be wise to disappoint Saltzman if he wanted her
to continue lobbying Axelrod on his behalf. So Obama agreed to speak."

Axelrod, now Obama's top adviser, denied that the Illinois Democrat made
the speech to win over political friends and mentors. "That's not true,"
said Axelrod, who added that he was advising Obama "in an informal way"
at the time. . . .

The book also suggests Obama and his advisers initially were incensed
that top Democrats had relegated him to a speaking slot at the 2004
Democratic National Convention in Boston that was not carried live over
the three major TV networks. The keynote address ultimately was what
helped propel him to the national stage.

"As it has all turned out, we all look like geniuses," Obama's senate
campaign manager Jim Cauley says in the book. "But back then, we were
totally pissed."

The book opens with a scene from Boston on the afternoon before Obama's
big speech. "The swagger in his step appeared even cockier than usual on
the afternoon of July 27, 2004," the book says. Once past a security
checkpoint, Obama told Mendell that he felt like LeBron James, the
National Basketball Association star. "I'm LeBron, baby," Obama is
quoted as saying. "I can play on this level. I got some game."

JOHN KASS, CHICAGO TRIBUNE - Often missing from the Obama puffery is any
acknowledgment that despite the rhetoric, Obama is all but a front man
for Mayor Richard Daley's Chicago Democratic political machine. He has
backed Daley for re-election, with City Hall awash in federal
investigations, and he's got the mayor's media strategist David Axelrod
massaging his message. Obama has supported other machine creatures. . .
I don't know what Washington political writers call it. But back home,
this is what we call transcending politics the Chicago Way.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||