So, my piece from yesterday on Sen. Barack Obama has made it’s rounds on the internet. Someone posted it over at DemocraticUnderground, Blogger News Network picked it up, Total Drivel linked to it, and Bartcop quoted it on his page after it appeared on his blog. The comments it has gotten from some leftwing Obama supporters have been a riot, though none have ventured a denial of the post’s content.
“Umm, the DLC has endorsed Clinton’s candidacy so this post is pretty much irrelevant” writes one person. Actually, no, the DLC has not endorsed Clinton. But even if they had, why would that make Obama’s embrace of DLC third-way philosophy irrelevant?
Ben weighs in with this: “I think you overstate the case about progressives disliking the DLC… (Barack) has gone really far towards avoiding ties with corporatism. He flies commericial.” Hey Ben, what Bizzaro world do YOU live on? Have you missed the almost daily attacks on the DLC by the “progressive” left? Did KOS’s call to make them “radioactive” get by you somehow?
Now, I won’t deny I’m enjoying making a few folks in the netroots squirm over this. The spin cycle over at Democratic Underground is working overtime. But it just goes to show how little about Obama many of his supporters know. Take a blogger over at DailyKos, for example. “Snout” is a “strong supporter” of Obama and feels he’s an “asset to our party.” However, on the subject of Bill Clinton, Snout is a bit more negative.
“Clinton turned the clock backwards on the poor via welfare reform…He was a decent Republican president. I’m looking to vote for a Democrat this time.”
Hmmm… Snout, this strong Obama supporter, believes Clinton is a Republican for enacting welfare reform. So how do you think Snout reconciles this quote from Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope?
“conservatives — and Bill Clinton — were right about welfare as it was previously structured: By detaching income from work and by making no demands on welfare recipients other than a tolerance for intrusive bureaucracy and an assurance that no man lived in the same house as the mother of his children, the old A.F.D.C. program sapped people of their initiative and eroded their self respect.”
The answer? Snout has probably never read that quote. In fact, I’d wager this strong Obama supporter has never read his book. Should it not be someone’s business to educate themselves about a candidate before they profess adoration of him or her?