Obama seems to be the candidate of choice on the left, so examining his values and such seems to be justified.

Yesterday I noted a video that surfaced recently of him detailing some of his thoughts of the military.  Frankly they concern me.  But it doesn't stop there.

I read this quick bit tonight and frankly I don't understand why he made this point, other than the desire to be considered the outsider in Washington.  He seems to determined to force people to accept his representation that he is the salmon swimming against the current in DC.

So, asked last night to name a regret, of all the voted he has been a part of, he comes up with this:

Obama regrets intervening to save Terri Schiavo

Asked in last night's debate to name a regret, Sen. Barack Obama said he would like to take back his vote authorizing Congress to intervene to save the life of the brain-injured Florida woman Terri Schiavo.

He has had what, 3 years of policy votes to draw from, and this is his first inclination?

Congress got involved by allowing the Schindlers to argue their case in federal court after their appeals in state courts failed. The Senate approved by unanimous consent a compromise plan that the House later endorsed and President Bush signed.

But during last night's Democratic presidential candidate debate with Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama confirmed he believed congressional intervention in Schiavo's case was wrong.

"When I first arrived in the Senate that first year, we had a situation surrounding Terri Schiavo," Obama said. "And I remember how we adjourned with a unanimous agreement that eventually allowed Congress to interject itself into that decision-making process of the families. It wasn't something I was comfortable with, but it was not something that I stood on the floor and stopped," he said.

"And I think that was a mistake, and I think the American people understood that that was a mistake. And as a constitutional law professor, I knew better," Obama continued.

A priest who was with Schiavo during her final hours later told WND that many in society don't understand the difference between a futile treatment and a futile life.

Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life said even healthy people, if brain-injured, are in danger under the current case precedents.

And honestly that is where my beef comes in.  When there is no clear indication of the person's decision, why not ask the doctors and the courts to err on the side of life?

"Terri left no indication that she wanted to be deprived of food and water. Yet the courts insisted that this happen. Nor was Terri lacking a family ready to care for her, without complaint. Yet they were not allowed to," he said.

At the time I really tried to see both sides of the debate, but in the end that was my thought.

This, apparently is not a new thing for Obama:

According to LifeSite News, Obama also said during an April 2007 debate that he should have fought to cut off Schiavo's food and water earlier.

"And I think I should have stayed in the Senate and fought more for making sure [that Schiavo's parents were not allowed to pursue arguments in federal court]," LifeSite quoted Obama saying in the previous debate.

So again, after all this time, why force this issue now?  I suppose to cement his reputation as supporting the right to die, which as far as I know is not really a divisive issue.

Obama continues to trip on his foreign policy stances.  In comments made recently he supports Israel (via Sister Toldjah):

The NY Sun has a partial transcript of his remarks, but these were brought to my attention today at a political forum I post at and I wanted to share them with you:

I am not naïve. There is a hard core of jihadist fundamentalists who we can’t negotiate with. We have to hunt them down and knock them out. Incapacitate them. That’s the military aspects of dealing with this phenomenon. Now somebody like a Richard Clarke would estimate that the hard core jihadists would gladly blow up this room maybe it’s 30,000 people, maybe it’s 40,000 people, maybe it’s 50,000 people. But it is a finite number. And that is where military action and intelligence has to be directed. So all the things I’ve talked about in the past - improving our intelligence capacity, improving our alliances, rolling up financial support, improving our homeland security, making sure that we have strike forces that are effective - that’s all the military, intelligence, police work that’s required.

The question then is what do we do with the 1.3 billion Muslims, who are along a spectrum of belief. Some extraordinarily moderate, some very pious but not violent. How do we reach out to them? And it is my strong belief that that is the battlefield that we have to worry about, and that is where we have been losing badly over the last 7 years. That is where Iraq has been a disaster. That is where the lack of effective public diplomacy has been a disaster. That is where our failure to challenge seriously human rights violations by countries like Saudi Arabia that are our allies has been a disaster. And so what we have to do is to speak to that broader Muslim world in a way that says we will consistently support human rights, women’s rights. We will consistently invest in the kinds of educational opportunities for children in these communities, so that madrasas are not their only source of learning. We will consistently operate in ways that lead by example, so that we have no tolerance for a Guantanamo or renditions or torture. Those all contribute to people at least being open to our values and our ideas and a recognition that we are not the enemy and that the Clash of Civilizations is not inevitable.

That sounds very much like what the President has been saying and doing these last several years. See his remarks here, here, here, and here for examples.

Sounds like BO, for all his bluster against the President’s Middle East policies, has chosen a form of the “Bush doctrine” for the Middle East himself, although it’s a little more nuanced than his “borrowing” of some of MA Gov. Deval Patrick’s more memorable applause lines.

And consider his close proximity to advisers who are openly anti Israel, it may be hard for him to maintain.

It’s too bad that for all his talk about wanting to protect human rights, in January 2007 he advocated a pull out of Iraq of all combat brigades, starting in May 2007, which he wanted complete a month from now. He also opposed the surge, a surge that by most accounts has proven to be successful. Had this surge not taken place, and all combat brigades been pulled out of Iraq as Obama advocated should take place, there is little doubt that a genocide would have broken out in Iraq by the “insurgency” forces and Al Qaeda terrorists who we are still fighting there, not to mention provided a fertile ground for Iran to step in and take control, because we would have left a not completely ready security force there to have to deal with a major problem they couldn’t handle on their own, which would have, in turn, created a human rights disaster on a massive scale.

And that to me is just his efforts to appeal to the anti war leftist fringe.

Also, when BO starts talking about what he wants to do regarding Iraq, he really should at least put on a pretense of knowing what he’s talking about. Here’s what he asserted in last night’s debate:

RUSSERT: Senator Obama, I want you to respond to not holding oversight for your subcommittee. But also, do you reserve a right as American president to go back into Iraq once you have withdrawn with sizable troops in order to quell any kind of insurrection or civil war?

OBAMA: Now, I always reserve the right for the president — as commander in chief, I will always reserve the right to make sure that we are looking out for American interests. And if al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad.

Al Qaeda already has a base in Iraq.

I am sure if pressed Obama would reply that since those training camps are training for limited actions only in Iraq, there is no actual threat to "the American homeland and our interests abroad."

Here’s another faux pas Obama made about AQ today in response to McCain’s point about there already being an Al Qaeda base in Afghanistan (via Memeo):

Obama was responding, incredulously, to McCain’s suggestion that he’s unaware of the presence of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which the Arizona Senator said earlier today was apparently “news” to Obama at last night’s debate.

“McCain thought that he could make a clever point by saying, ‘Well let me give you some news, Barack, Al Qaeda is in Iraq,’ like I wasn’t reading the papers, like didn’t know what was going on.” Obama said, leaning into his developing McCain impression.

He then described the context — a hypothetical question from Tim Russert — and said, “First of all, I do know Al Qaeda is in Iraq, and that’s why I said we should continue to strike Al Qaeda targets.”

“I have some news for John McCain,” Obama continued, “That’s there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain” began the Iraq war, he said.

Al Qaeda forces were in Iraq as early as September 2001.

This is another popular belief shared by the left, that Al Qaeda had no presence there prior to our invasion.

Obama almost seems to be slowly molding his positions to the mainstream democrat positions, and even leaning a bit out to the fringe nutroots.  Why?  Because he needs the support of the base to win.

He makes much of his "constant" opposition to the war, contrasting himself to McCain who supports fighting, and Hillary who supported it and now opposes it.

But his position really take advantage of a lot of nuance, if not deliberate misdirection, as ST notes here:

Re: Obama’s Iraq claim, Senator Clinton has been verbally slapped around on her vote in favor of the Iraq war on numerous occasions, but what she didn’t mention last night as a rebuttal to Senator Obama’s claim of better “judgement” about the Iraq war was a couple of things: 1) She was in the Senate when the debate was being held on the Iraq war, and was privy to more intelligence than then-state senator Obama had, and made her decision on her Iraq war vote based on the information she had at the time. 2) On July 26, 2004 this NYT article reported a more nuanced position by Senator Obama, implying that he might have voted like the majority did, had he had he, too, been privy to more intelligence:

‘’But, I’m not privy to Senate intelligence reports,'’ Mr. Obama said. ‘’What would I have done? I don’t know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.'’

IOW, it’s really easy to be sitting on the sidelines without all the information at hand when you come down against something. It’s another thing to have the access to the information that the people did who actually voted on the issue.

The very next day he flip flopped and said he would have voted “no” on the Senate resolution.

From the debate transcript:

OBAMA: Al Qaeda is stronger than anytime since 2001 according to our own intelligence estimates, and we are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another 100 years,

Fact: This is false. Barack Obama has characterized McCain’s 100 years war comment in a number of ways, all of them distorted. Here were McCain’s actual comments:

Last month, at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, a crowd member asked McCain about a Bush statement that troops could stay in Iraq for 50 years.

“Maybe 100,” McCain replied. “As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.”

You’ll note that McCain never once suggested that we could be in Iraq for 100 years, but that instead we’ll probably need to maintain a presence there - which is, BTW, what we’ve done in numerous other countries after wars we’ve been involved in in the past. Barack Obama is simply not being truthful when he makes little quips about McCain’s “100 year war.”

And I will, again, ask the obvious question:  What's the big deal about a US base in Iraq?  Even if AQ pulled out tomorrow, these people oppose any permanent or semi permanent presence there.  Why?  Why not leave a foothold in Iraq, like we have in Korea, Germany, Japan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and in dozens of other countries worldwide?

There is such an obvious strategic value to continuing to support Iraq and that region in general, with at least a minor presence there that these comments by the left seem to just be knee jerk in nature.

The campaign is not over, Hillary can still pull a coup with the super delegates, so this is preemptive, but all indications lead to him as the choice, so now is a good time to start looking at he who would be the second black president.

Not being a big McCain supporter, I still have to admit that Obama, and Hillary to a lesser degree are sometimes so whacked and nuanced they make McCain look reasonable and consistent.

 Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary's Thoughts, Right Truth, Conservative Cat, Adeline and Hazel, third world county, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, Celebrity Smack, The Pink Flamingo, , Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, The Yankee Sailor, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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