No choice
“The list of issues on which Barack Obama has flipped now that the primaries are over is long and growing rapidly,” Dick Morris writes in the Hill newspaper.
• “He says he believes in a Second Amendment right to bear arms.
• “He now opposes late-term abortion.
• “He suddenly is a devotee of using faith-based institutions to deliver public services.
• “He now says that he won’t raise Social Security taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. In the primary, he said he’d eliminate the threshold entirely, including on people making as little as $100,000.
• “He recently opposed the Fairness Doctrine for talk radio.
• “Now he says he’s going to consult with the military before pulling out of Iraq.
“But so extensive a list of flip-flops, all in the past few weeks, begs the basic question: Was he lying before when he was a liberal, or is he prevaricating now?” Mr. Morris said.
“Even if Obama means what he is saying as he moves to the center trying to win the general election, the fact is that he will be forced to move very far to the left should he become president, forced by the liberals in his own party. …
“Obama will not be able to help himself. The Democratic majority in Congress won’t settle for triangulation.
They will make the Obama of November into a liar and the Obama of the primaries into an honest man.” ’Unrealistic’ plan?
“This week’s Group of 8 meeting in Japan raises some important questions about Sen. John McCain’s approach to the art of diplomacy,” former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former Defense Secretary William J. Perry write in the Los Angeles Times.
“McCain has suggested that Russia be kicked out of the G-8 because of its government’s retreat from democracy in recent years. This is the kind of proposal one might expect from a party candidate seeking to differentiate himself from the policies of an unpopular predecessor. It is not, however, a good idea,” said the writers, who served in the Clinton administration.
“The problem is not in McCain’s analysis, but in his proposed remedy.
“Yes, Russia has moved away from the principles that caused it to be invited to join what was the G-7 during the 1990s. Under the leadership of Russia’s former president and current prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, power has been centralized at the expense of the parliament, regional governments, the courts, the media and civil society. Russia goes through the motions of democracy, but the reality has been lost. The question is how the United States, and the West in general, should respond.
“McCain favors booting Russia out of the wealthy-democracies forum, but he does not say what this would accomplish other than dramatizing, for a moment, our disappointment with Russia’s domestic policies.
“In any case, the senator’s proposal is as unrealistic as it would be counterproductive because the United States does not wield a veto over G-8 membership.”
Taxes and truth
“Barack Obama and John McCain are now going toe-to-toe on economics,” Jennifer Rubin writes at www.spectator.org.
“Obama’s main challenge: to convince voters he is not a classic tax-and-spend liberal. McCain’s is to convince voters he is focused and determined to solve pocketbook issues,” the writer said.
“McCain may have the tough time revealing his opponents’ underlying predispositions. Obama has been talking a very a good game in the last few months. On taxes, for example, at the Philadelphia Democratic debate in April he swore off tax increases for the middle class, declaring, ’Well, I not only have pledged not to raise their taxes, I’ve been the first candidate in this race to specifically say I would cut their taxes.’
“On ’The View’ he likewise announced, ’First of all, I don’t want higher taxes, I have to pay taxes, and it’s no fun. You know I think sometimes there’s this presumption that Democrats, we just love taxing people. No, I would prefer to keep taxes as low as possible.’
“That sounds fairly promising. But the reality is different, and McCain will need to bolster his communications effort to make sure voters understand that Obama voted to raise taxes 94 times and specifically to raise income taxes on those making as little as $31,850. Has Obama had a change or heart or is his voting record a reliable indicator of how he would govern if elected president?”
Bad idea
Don’t expect to see more of Barack Obama’s young daughters on television any time soon, the Associated Press reports.
The Democratic presidential candidate and his wife, Michelle, allowed the syndicated program “Access Hollywood” to interview their daughters, Malia and Sasha, as Malia celebrated her 10th birthday. The four-part interview began airing Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Mr. Obama said he had second thoughts after seeing how much attention the interview had received. The Obamas had been keeping Malia and 7-year-old Sasha out of the media spotlight.
“It was an exception, it was Malia’s birthday, we were in Montana, everybody was having a good time,” he told “Good Morning America” on ABC. “I think we got carried away a little bit. Generally what makes them so charming is the fact that they’re not spending a lot of time worrying about TV cameras or politics, and we want to keep it that way.”
Asked if he regretted the interview, Mr. Obama said: “A little bit of pause, Michelle and I, particularly given the way it sort of went around the cable stations. I don’t think it’s healthy, and it’s something that we’ll be avoiding in the future.”
Bad idea II
A local Republican Club in New Jersey has removed a slogan from its Web site that read, “Obama loves America like O.J. loved Nicole.”
The Pemberton Republican Club had posted the slogan that referenced NFL Hall of Famer O.J. Simpson, who was acquitted in the 1994 murders of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.
Todd Riffle, spokesman for the New Jersey Republican State Committee, said the state party isn’t tied to local Republican clubs.
The Pemberton Republican Club removed the slogan after Democrats charged racist campaign tactics.
The club’s Web master, Ed Kuck, didn’t respond to a message left at his home, the Associated Press reports, but told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he saw the slogan on an Internet site and copied it onto the club’s Web page as a joke.
“I just want to apologize to anybody who was offended, because that wasn’t our intention at all,” Mr. Kuck told the newspaper.
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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