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09/29/2005:

"Obama the Enabler"

...Senator Obama's "town meeting" (a well-controlled PR exercise) was an apparent triumph. An editor of the right-wing local newspaper, The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, wrote, "It was a virtual love-in Thursday at the Illinois Terminal in Champaign when Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama stopped by to answer questions at a town meeting. Even the anti-war protestors, who criticized Obama for not arranging the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq after a mere eight months in office, were deferential."

The student newspaper, The Daily Illini, described AWARE's activities: "Anti-war protesters met Obama in the Illinois Terminal parking lot with posters critical of the senator's reluctance to endorse an immediate pullout. After a short exchange of words with Obama, the protesters followed him all the way to the fourth floor ballroom of the terminal. As Obama delivered his opening statement from the podium, a member of the Anti-War/Anti-Racism Effort walked the aisles passing out the group's literature. Obama attempted to align himself with the protesters' sentiments while defending his cautiousness toward a pullout."

In fact, the senator took just one (gentle) question on the war, and never mentioned torture, Iran, the Downing Street minutes, Israel, impeachment, imprisonment without trial by the US government, etc. (Asked about that by a member of AWARE after the rally, Obama replied, "Other people have the right to ask questions, too.") What he did say about the war was even more disturbing -- that he hoped US troops "could begin to leave Iraq next year, [but] removing the troops now would result in a massive bloodbath for both countries."

That is, of course, almost identical with the administration's position, and it ignores the fact that a majority of the Iraqis want the U.S. out now, understandably enough, because the "massive bloodbath" is already occurring. It contrasts sharply with the view expressed so clearly this summer by Cindy Sheehan, who points out that one is either for the ending of the war and the withdrawal of the U.S. from Iraq, or for its continuance.

But to a largely sympathetic audience in August, Obama pled his poor power to add or detract from the blood-letting: he was, after all, only "99th in seniority" in the Senate. "I am not the president -- yet," he said -- "prompting loud cheers," according to the student newspaper.

There was a vein of smug self-satisfaction in Obama's casual talk, as there was in his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. When asked about John Rogers' nomination to the Supreme Court, he replied with a smile, "Well, I know he went to a good law school." (Obama and Rogers were both at Harvard Law.) In an article for Time magazine about another Illinois politician, he had earned some condign ridicule by writing, "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat -- in all this, he reminded me not just of my own struggles."

But it's Obama's role as a liberal enabler of the war that most disquieted members of AWARE. He is cooperating in the critical support that the Democratic party has given to the war and to U.S. government policy in the Greater Middle East -- a policy that has killed tens of thousands of people during this administration and may yet have even more catastrophic results. Leading Democrats are now to the right of the Bush administration in calling for an expansion of the U.S. military.
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