More on Obama’s Sellout to the Right

Now here’s an admission we all need to hear; it’s from Stephen Ducat, posting at – of all places – the Huffington Post:

“OK, we all knew, deep down, that our wondrous golden boy of change would one day reveal his feet of clay. What most of us did not anticipate was just how easily they would fit into jackboots.”

In case you missed it, Ducat’s “golden boy” is Barack Obama, and there’s more to follow on the candidate recently transformed from “change you can believe in” to “whatever change it takes to win.” Here Ducat takes on conventional wisdom, the well-known enemy of progressive thought:

“There has emerged a conventional wisdom among progressives that is not entirely wrong about why Obama has so readily embraced police state surveillance, and why he felt compelled to express his solidarity with Scalia, et al, on the death penalty. As the thinking goes, these moves are simply the expectable, if disheartening, political positioning typical of Democratic presidential candidates, once they enter the general election campaign.”

Ducat continues with a likely GOP ad that would have attacked Obama had he not suddenly shifted to the right:

Low, rumbling, ominous music gradually increases in volume as a solemn voice that oozes manly gravitas announces, "Barack Obama voted against a bill to that would help our intelligence agencies detect terrorist plots against our nation before they can be carried out. Why does he want to protect the privacy of Al-Qaeda's phone calls more than he wants to protect Americans from Al-Qaeda? [Cut to an image of a World Trade Tower falling.] Barack Obama doesn't want the death penalty applied to criminals who sexually assault and brutalize little children. Why does he care more about child rapists [cut to image of a swarthy unshaven convict doing the perp walk] than he does about their victims? [Cut to an image of doe-eyed little blond girl with tears rolling down her apple cheeks, as she lies in an oversized hospital bed holding tightly to her teddy bear.] Barack Obama and his friends at the ACLU care about terrorists and rapists. Vote for John McCain. He cares about us." [As reassuring music swells, cut to an image of a younger looking, photo-shopped McCain in his crisp Naval officer's uniform. One arm is around a child, the other rising in a determined salute to the flag.]

Calling Obama out for his “limited ability to exercise moral leadership,” Ducat offers an alternative ad from the progressive perspective:

The 30-second ad opens on a scene in a middle class suburban kitchen. A mother is speaking on the phone. Her voice is muffled and is drowned out by an intermittent electronic beep, along with the sounds of someone frenetically striking a computer keyboard. The screen quickly splits in half to reveal the woman's nine-year-old daughter speaking by cell phone to inform her mother that she is ready to be picked up from the school bus stop. The screen is then split in thirds to reveal a man wearing headphones sitting in front of a computer typing notes, obviously monitoring the mother-daughter conversation. Behind him is a massive warehouse filled with computers and scurrying NSA technicians. This image then takes up the entire screen. The voiceover says, "Republicans, like George Bush and John McCain, have taken away our freedoms, invaded our private lives, and made us less safe." We then quickly see a succession of images -- a scene from Iraq that features a burning American tank, a scene of grenade launchers being placed into a packing crate, a scene of an unguarded American port where uninspected shipping containers are being off loaded, and finally a scene of a car with blacked out windows slowing down in front of an unsecured nuclear power plant. A window rolls down. A hand holding a camera reaches out to snap photos. Then the car speeds away. The voice over then concludes, "Protecting America means preserving our rights [cut to an image of the Constitution in which the camera scrolls down the Bill of Rights section], along with defeating terrorists." The last image is a scene of Barack Obama standing up and pointing toward a large map of some unidentifiable part of the world. Below him is a large conference table of twenty or so advisors who are listening with rapt attention.

So far so good, but then Ducat concludes: “In spite of his limitations, there is too much at stake to not work hard to make sure Barack Obama moves into the White House. And, once there, we must hold his clay feet to the fire.”

I repeat: Folks, we are not stuck with this obviously flawed candidate; the delegates still have to vote in Denver on August 27.

Keep Hillary Clinton’s name on the ballot!!

Note: To read Ducat’s article in its entirety, Google the title: Understanding Obama's Recent Right Turn+Ducat+Huffington Post (Sorry, I don’t link there).