About the Author
The Author
Andrew Heyman lives and works in Seattle Washington USA. His true vocation is political writing and agitating for the radical idea that a society that is governed by, and serves the needs of the people is best.
Andrew is also the member of a wonderful family with his loving wife, Pam, and the proud father of 2 wonderful children, Josie and Adam. They all keep him from becoming immersed in blogging to an unhealthy degree, and remind him of why he cares about what is going on in this world in the first place.
You can email him at kiacyclic-AT-gmail.com.
Obama's Move to the Right
It was inevitable. Once the primary season ends, winning candidates always abandon their previous hardline positions, and move to ones that are meant to gather as many "independent" voters as possible. The conservative Charles Krauthammer tracks Obama's path since Sen. Clinton dropped out:
"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."
-- Obama spokesman Bill Burton, Oct. 24, 2007
That was then: Democratic primaries to be won, netroot lefties to be seduced. With all that (and Hillary Clinton) out of the way, Obama now says he'll vote in favor of the new FISA bill that gives the telecom companies blanket immunity for post-Sept. 11 eavesdropping.
Back then, in the yesteryear of primary season, he thoroughly trashed the North American Free Trade Agreement, pledging to force a renegotiation, take "the hammer" to Canada and Mexico and threaten unilateral abrogation.
Today the hammer is holstered. Obama calls his previous NAFTA rhetoric "overheated" and essentially endorses what one of his senior economic advisers privately told the Canadians: The anti-trade stuff was nothing more than populist posturing.
Nor is there much left of his primary season pledge to meet "without preconditions" with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There will be "preparations," you see, which are being spun by his aides into the functional equivalent of preconditions.
Putting aside the fact that the FISA bill that is in Congress right now is not the same one that was present in 2007 (although Obama should still vote against it if the right to privacy is to have any meaning at all), and that his stance on diplomacy with Iran is essentially unchanged (sorry Charlie, given the Bush administration's record, Obama's rhetorical use of the idea of "preparations" should hardly be an issue here), Krauthammer does nail down the political reality of what is going on right now (although somehow he isn't mentioning that McCain has more positions on many issues than the Karma Sutra).
He also gets that despite the change in Obama's positions, voters like me aren't going to abandon him:
He won't lose the left, or even mainstream Democrats. They won't stay home on Nov. 4. The anti-Bush, anti-Republican sentiment is simply too strong. Election Day is their day of revenge -- for the Florida recount, for Swift-boating, for all the injuries, real and imagined, dealt out by Republicans over the past eight years.
True enough, because what are my other options? The increasingly curmudgeonly Ralph Nader? I don't think so.
What Krauthammer misses however is that it has always been this way. Any substantial change that favor the people of this nation has always come from one place. . . THE PEOPLE! FDR was not the savior many Democrats make him out to be, it was a huge wave of strikes and organized unemployed Americans that brought the New Deal. It wasn't Kennedy or Johnson that ended segregation and ended Jim Crow. It was a movement of people on the streets of America that did that. Same goes for Vietnam. An 8 hour work day. The continued defense and expansion of free speech rights. The list goes on.
Do I support Mr. Obama's election to the presidency? Sure. But I understand that he is wedded to the interests of economic elites, and I am sure as hell ready to push, prod, and make a scene when needed to get the work of the people done. If you want "change that you can believe in" you will do the same.