:: Un-flipping-believable

The Kings of the Liberal Blogosphere are up to their necks in crap

We've all seen the story about Obama declining public funds for the general election. Quick recap: he pledged to take public funds and to "aggressively" pursue a meeting with his opponent to set ground rules. Now he's reversed himself, and it seems he never bothered trying to meet with McCain. Barack claims he has to break his pledge because McCain won't control the spending of 527s. [This is the same attack he used against John Edwards in Iowa. Obviously Barack knows full well that a candidate can't force outside groups to do anything; furthermore, MoveOn.org is all over the air right now attacking McCain on his behalf]. Flip. Flop. Repeat.

Its the Kings of the Liberal Blogosphere that I find amusing.

Campaign finance reform and the conceits on which it is predicated have been left wing dogma for years. I think we all know the drill:

• We need to get money out of politics!
• Public financing is necessary to level the playing field. Its the only way to guarantee a fair, democratic process!
  
• Money does not equal speech! The Supreme Court was crazy when it said that!
• PACs and 527s are just gaming the system. They are evil and must be stopped!

Once Obama dropped out of public financing, the KLBs faced a dilemma: how to reconcile the standing liberal-left dogma with the Messiah's new teaching? It didn't take long for them to decide to adjust their principles to meet the candidate's position (just as they did with health care reform). Here's a link to DKos, where a thousand flowers of stupidity are in full bloom; and this is the NY Times' take (the comments at both sites are priceless, by the way):

The liberal blogosphere’s reaction to Senator Barack Obama’s decision to opt out of public financing can be summed up in the one-word opening line of its king, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga: “Good.”

He echoed Chris Bowers of OpenLeft, who wrote:

An Obama victory in the general election is worth nearly infinitely more than following an abstract ethical principal about the role of private money in elections, especially considering that the vast majority of Obama’s money will come from small donors giving $250 or less.

Indeed, a TalkLeft blogger had only one objection to Mr. Obama’s announcement via YouTube video this morning: the timing. “I think he should have announced it during the primaries as he will now get some tough media coverage for this decision when he would have gotten a free ride when he was running against Hillary Clinton,” Big Tent Democrat writes, adding that public financing does not provide enough money to Democrats.

So, circa now, the new dogma is:

• Money in politics is great, so long as it is our money going to our candidate!
• Only losers want to force the taxpayers to pay for their campaigns. Public financing is for chumps!
  
• We need massive amounts of money to get our message out! Money does equal speech after all!
• PACS and 527s are evil and must be stopped, unless they are on our side, in which case they are great!

Bonus lessons in the dogma:

• When a candidate answers a question with a "yes," everyone knows you have to keep reading / listening to catch the conditions and nuances. "Yes" never just means "yes," dummy! How could anybody be so lazy as to take "yes" for an answer!
  
• You shouldn't get upset when a candidate abandons an issue you think is important. Single issue politics is unhealthy. And you shouldn't expect the impossible. Whatever your problem is, there are BIGGER ISSUES here!
  

From browsing around, I think the next re-education session will cover Obama's response (or lack thereof) to FISA, and his utterly craven decision to support incumbent Georgia Congressman John Barrow, a wiretap enthusiast, over progressive challenger state Senator Regina Thomas. Here's a taste, from Glenn Greenwald at Salon:

As noted yesterday, Blue Dog Rep. John Barrow of Georgia has been one of the most enthusiastic enablers of the radical and lawless policies of the Bush administration. When running for re-election, he ran ads accusing his own party of wanting to "cut and run in Iraq," and was one of the 21 Blue Dogs to send a letter to Nancy Pelosi demanding that they be allowed to vote for the Rockefeller/Cheney Senate bill to give warrantless eavesdropping powers to the President and amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms.

As a result of all of that, Barrow faces a serious primary challenge in July from State Senator Regina Thomas, who decided to run against Barrow due to -- as she told Howie Klein when she announced -- "Barrow's failure to support his constituents against the encroachments of powerful Big Business interests." As Klein noted yesterday, Thomas' positions on both foreign and domestic policy are firmly in line with Barack Obama's views and with the Democratic base in that district, while Barrow has continuously supported the most extremist Bush policies, as he himself proudly boasts.

But what's this? Barack just cut an ad for Barrow:

In the ad, Obama asks voters to join him in supporting Barrow. "We're going to need John Barrow back in Congress to help change Washington and get our country back on track," Obama says in the 60-second ad.

Greenwald thinks this kind of behavior sounds familiar... in fact, it reminds him of this:

Democratic leaders pretend that they are forced continuously to capitulate to the Bush administration due to their "conservative" members, yet continuously work to keep those same members in power, even when it comes to supporting them against far better Democratic primary challengers.

Obama has made himself a central part of that rancid scheme. Recall that in 2006, Obama -- who now touts his commitment to ending the war -- endorsed Joe Lieberman in his Connecticut primary race over war opponent Ned Lamont, appearing with Lieberman to say: "Joe Lieberman's a man with a good heart, with a keen intellect, who cares about the working families of America . . . . I am absolutely certain that Connecticut's going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the United States Senate."

What's this? "Obama - who now touts his commitment to ending the war.." You mean, the claim that "Obama put his political career on the line to oppose going to war in Iraq... Obama has been a consistent, principled and vocal opponent of the war in Iraq" may be something of a, whatchamacallit, fairy tale?

It's okay for a Senator to support the war... unless the Senator is running against Obama. Hmmm. I guess pundits can start to think about this kind of thing now that the real threat is behind us...