Flip-Flopping?

"I am someone who is no doubt progressive" from The Carpetbagger Report.

This is an excellent blog, and I really suggest that people check it out. It's definitely left-leaning, but the thing I've noticed about left-leaning blogs (as opposed to right-leaning blogs) is that they tend to *gasp* link to their sources. The bias is there, but I'm inclined to lend much more credence here than, say, WorldNetDaily or whathaveyou because The Carpetbagger Report actually bothers to present sources for what it claims.

It's left-leaning, but it's also right. (And yes, I tried to think of a way to avoid that pun and just couldn't get around it.)

Whether Barack Obama is “moving to the middle” is a topic of considerable discussion, though I tend to think most of the handwringing is overwrought and misplaced. But I was taken aback by the ferocity of Bob Herbert’s column in the NYT this morning, in which he complained that Obama is “not just tacking gently toward the center,” but “lurching right” and “zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that’s guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.”

So there he was in Zanesville, Ohio, pandering to evangelicals by promising not just to maintain the Bush program of investing taxpayer dollars in religious-based initiatives, but to expand it. Separation of church and state? Forget about it.

And there he was, in the midst of an election campaign in which the makeup of the Supreme Court is as important as it has ever been, agreeing with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas that the death penalty could be imposed for crimes other than murder. What was the man thinking?

As much as I tend to enjoy Herbert’s work, this column is way over the top, and in some instances, simply factually wrong. For example, if you simply read the AP report last week, you’d get the impression that Obama’s “faith-based initiative” is just like Bush’s. Unfortunately, Herbert didn’t read the actual speech, or he would have known that this simply isn’t true. This isn’t an example of Obama “lurching” towards Bush’s position; it’s an example of the opposite.

(snip)

I can’t help but think the hyperventilating in some corners has become wildly excessive. On some issues (gay marriage in California, reforming the bankruptcy laws), Obama has moved to the left. On others (Iraq, death penalty, faith-based programs), he hasn’t moved at all. He switched gears on public financing, but that was pragmatic, not ideological. Obama is wrong about the FISA “compromise,” but one issue, albeit an important one, is not evidence of “zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that’s guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.”

In fact, one of the great ironies of the last couple of weeks is that there’s been hysterical cries about Obama “moving to the middle” without him really moving much at all. In some ways, this is actually the best of all possible worlds — voters (most of whom consider themselves moderates) are being told that Obama is angering liberals by campaigning as a centrist, while at the same time, Obama is just about as progressive as he was before.

In this sense, Obama is getting credit for moderation without really having to moderate. It’s disappointing to read a sloppy attack like Herbert’s, but in the big picture, maybe that’s a good thing for voters who think Obama’s “too liberal” to hear.

And about Obama's supposed change in position on Iraq stuff. Honestly, guys. I know some of you are buying this and that's just disturbing. It's pretty clear you haven't been listening, because you can't tell the difference between someone who's feeding you a shameless line of unsubstantiated crap, and someone who's repeated the same set of things over and over for years. I'm going to link this and be done with it.

Now let's see how McCain does on the consistency test. The Carpetbagger Report has an alarming list, as does Ira Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Oops.

But y'know... people who are buying this are, like I said before, not paying attention. They're credulous people looking to justify voting with "their team" for good or ill, and if they weren't convinced by reason and research... I have little hope of changing their minds. I just get tired of hearing their crap!