Posted on 01/31/2007 6:01:03 AM PST by Risha
WASHINGTON - Although he frequently makes a point of finding something charitable to say about his opponents arguments, Sen. Barack Obama almost always ends up voting liberal.
The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact, the Illinois Democrat wrote in The Audacity of Hope, a memoir published last year. Much of what I absorbed from the sixties was filtered through my mother, who to the end of her life would proudly proclaim herself an unreconstructed liberal.
Obama has a 95 percent liberal rating from Americans for Democratic Reform, a liberal advocacy group that ranks all members of Congress. Yet he is often portrayed as a centrist.
His record is liberal, and his rhetoric is moderate, explained Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginias Center for Politics.
For example, Obama goes out of his way to voice approval of at least some aspects of Ronald Reagans presidency.
At times, in arguments with some of my friends on the left, I would find myself in the curious position of defending aspects of Reagans worldview, he wrote in Audacity. When the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, I had to give the old man his due, even if I never gave him my vote.
But in summing up Reagan, Obama concluded that the former presidents clarity about communism seemed matched by his blindness regarding other sources of misery in the world.
By pointing out the merits of both sides of an argument, Obama often sounds statesmanlike, even if he almost never ends up siding with conservatives. This dichotomy can be seen in Obamas analysis of President Bushs foreign policy.
I agree with George W. Bush when in his second inaugural address he proclaimed a universal desire to be free, Obama wrote. But there are few examples in history in which the freedom men and women crave is delivered through outside intervention.
If Obama survives the Democratic primaries and becomes his partys presidential nominee, his liberal positions will not necessarily hurt him among the centrist voters who cast ballots in the general election, according to Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report.
How you come across is more important than how you vote, Cook said. If voters perceive you as moderate, then your voting record isnt terribly relevant. Perception is more important than reality.
And yet he believes that monetary hand-outs from "government on high" will provide poor people with freedom from want. Hm.
Obama is a Socialist. He is not a threat and he will have a hard road ahead of him trying to get past the Clintonistas.
This has to be the single most asinine statement I have ever read in my 52 years on this planet!
Ahhh, liberals. If a successful conservative idea does not solve every ill, it is an utter failure.
If a liberal idea does nothing but makes people feel good about trying to help, it is a smashing success.
No disconnect there! That's an ideology that is clearly based on fact and reason, right?
Should be rephrased: But there are few examples that I will admit to in history in which the freedom men and women crave is delivered through outside intervention.
Lafayette?
Oh, this is gonna go over well in the red bits....
More often than what? More often than not, or more often than conservative arguments?
Moot point -- he's wrong either way.
But there are few examples in history in which the freedom men and women crave is delivered through outside intervention.
I'm sure that Europe would have been happier and more free under the Nazis.
The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact,
Odd. I've found that the arguments of liberals are usually grounded in emotion with a lot of name calling and vulgar language.
While their arguements" may be grounded in reason and fact, it's when those arguments are implimented that we see how stupid and foolish they actually are !!!
But there are few examples in history in which the freedom men and women crave is delivered through outside intervention.
How about Nazi extermination camps in Poland? How about the liberation of Paris in WWII? How about South Korea during Korean conflict? How about Panama? Granada? How about blacks in Mississippi in the 1960's? How about the CIVIL WAR?????
Dear Senator Obama: Hey sir, I was a liberal many moons ago. I became progressively (in the right sense) conservative over the decades because I found as a matter of fact that liberalism is grounded in unreality and outright lies. You have it exactly backwards senator.
Really? Tell me, Senator, which of these arguments of the left is grounded in reason and fact?...
Argument #1: "Big {Oil/Pharma/pick an industry} makes too much in profit."
Argument #2: "If George Bush is elected, more black churches will burn."
Argument #3: "If we would just engage in dialogue with {Syria/Iran/North Korea/pick an enemy} there would be no need for war."
Argument #4: "Humans are to blame for global warming; those who disagree with this view must be censored."
Argument #5: "If only the Jews weren't so evil there would be a peaceful, two-state solution in Israel."
Argument #6: "If only the government would fund embryonic stem cell research, Parkinson's patients would be cured."
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