Obama’s false bravado on change

Obama has clearly decided to run a campaign against President Bush.  And he has also lost any sense of shame.  He is constantly accusing his opponents of things that apply equally, or even more so, to himself.  Take today:

“Don’t be fooled,” a particularly punchy Obama told a crowd this morning at a town hall meeting in Terre Haute, Ind. “These are the folks who have been in charge. John McCain’s party, with the help of John McCain, has been in charge.”

Criticizing new VP candidate Sarah Palin, Obama said she poses as an anti-big-spending maverick despite having pulled in pork-barrel projects into her home state. Calling Palin “a skillful politician,” Obama charged the Alaska governor with taking earmarks “when it is convenient” but decrying them now that she is headlining McCain’s agenda.

“Words mean something!” Obama said of Palin’s reputation as an anti-earmark champion. “You can’t just make stuff up.”

Words do matter.  The problem is that Obama is all words and no action.  For example, Palin did change her mind about the famous Bridge to Nowhere, but she changed her mind in the right direction.  And when she was mayor she did her best to bring bring federal money to her city, but when given the chance to prove herself, and to back up her words, as govenor she did that by cutting spending and waste.  None of this entails making stuff up.

Also note the response of the McCain campaign:

“Barack Obama has requested the equivalent of $1 million in new pork-barrel spending for every working day he’s been in the U.S. Senate, while John McCain has never once asked for an earmark, and Gov. Palin has vetoed hundreds of millions in government spending including killing the infamous ‘Bridge to Nowhere’,” Bounds wrote in an email response. “Just like so many other issues Barack Obama is all talk, has no record to back it up and isn’t ready to make change.”

See how that works?  Obama mocks Palin for changing her mind about earmarks when he hasn’t changed his mind at all.  Insted he funnels millions of dollars to his wife’s employer without blinking an eye.  And Obama has a long history of funneling money to his campaign contributors and friends (often with disastrous results).  So who is better Palin for changing her mind and doing something about it or Obama who never changed his mind and sees nothing wrong with it?  Who is going to bring change to Washington someone who has proven that she can change the status quo or someone who has never changed or challenged anything his entire career.

The fact that his opponents VP pick has a better record on change has to really gall Obama, but it is a fact.  And as noted above the top of the GOP ticket has not taken any earmarks.  Do we want to even get into Joe Biden?

Then Obama goes off on partisanship:

“Maybe what they’re saying is, ‘Watch out George Bush,’” Obama speculated sarcastically, “except for economic policies, and tax policies, and energy policies, and health care policies, and education policies, and Karl Rove style politics. Except for all that, we’re really going to bring change to Washington! We’re really going to shake things up!”

Mocking Republicans’ appeal to end partisan rancor, Obama posed the tongue-in-cheek question to McCain’s party: “Did you pay attention to the last two days of your convention? I mean, what, were you not, were you not watching? Did they not get the memo?”

Funny, I seem to recall someone else’s highly partisan acceptance speech.  Oh, yeah that was Obama’s and it was more partisan than Palin’s or McCain’s.  Secondly, what in the world is with Obama and Karl Rove?  He mentions him constantly now.  And Rove is connected to McCain how?  This is just silly.  Rove has nothing to do with this election except in the fevered minds of the left.

More below.

On the policy, it is in fact true that McCain has challenged his own party and the Democrats on the issues Obama lists.  McCain has been a longstanding critic of the administration on spending, earmarks, and corruption to name a few.  And remember who risked his career fighting for the surge strategy when everyone else was ready to give up?  It wasn’t Obama who only recently even admitted the surge was a good idea.  The idea that McCain and Bush are buddies in lock step is preposterous.  Bush and McCain certainly differ a great deal more than Obama does with his own party.

Obama may have forgotten that it is in fact his party who is in charge of Congress.  And it is the Democrats who are fighting proposals to develop more domestic sources of energy.  And it is the Democrats who block any kind of education reform because they are in the pockets of the teachers unions.  And it is the Democrats who refuse to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and who are planning to raise taxes on the most productive members of the economy.  And it is the Democrats who threaten to block important trade deals.  On and on it goes.

Obama wants to pretend that Democrats have no responsibility and that he has no connection to the ineffective Congress.  Not surprisingly as they are even less popular that the president.  He wants voters to buy the argument that any change is good change when in fact Obama represents not change but a return to the failed liberalism of the past and a dangerous combination of a leftist free spending president with a proliferate Congress.

Lastly, Obama takes a shot at his other favorite bogeyman lobbyists:

Obama also skewered McCain, who has been criticized for employing former lobbyists like campaign manager Rick Davis and advisor Charlie Black, for McCain’s claim that he will cleanse K Street’s influence inside the Beltway.

“Is he going to tell the folks who are running his campaign, who are the biggest corporate lobbyists in Washington?” Obama asked of McCain with mock incredulity. “Who’s he going to tell that change is coming?”

I refuse to take anything Obama says in this regard seriously seeing how he made his career in Chicago without changing a thing.  And has done little but run for president once in the US Senate.  Who is he going to tell change is coming?  Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi? And what about his own running mate who has been in the Senate for decades?  He votes with them something like 96% of the time.  See two can play that voting game.

What about David Axelrod?  The man most responsible for the rise of Obama.  Just because he isn’t a lobbyist doesn’t mean he is squeaky clean.  In fact, Axelrod is a key advisor to Mayor Daley of Chicago and all the corruption and croyism that involves.  He was also involved in projects at the University of Chicago Hospital with Michelle Obama and other close friends of Obama’s.  There are just as many conflict of interest issues when you are in consulting as when you are lobbying.  Plus, Obama has plenty of lobbyist connections himself.  Again, do we even need to talk about Biden whose son is a lobbyist?

All of this is just tough talk designed to make his party’s base happy.  The problem is that it is easily refuted and countered and it cuts against his once unqie persona.  Where is the Obama of a new politics?  What happened to only running positive ads and respecting your oppoenents?  All this is gone and Obama is perilously close to simply running as an old time Democrat.  This may make Democrats happy but I am not so sure it appeals to independents and swing voters.

And that is why Obama has turned to mocking and bitter attacks.  He is dreadfully afraid that someone might steal what he thought was his own special brand.  But attacking your opponents VP choice and committment to reform is hardly a wise path to go down when you have such a weak record on the issue.

It seems to me team Obama has lost the magic.