Here is a potential problem for Obama that the GOP will exploit, and this one issue can be perverted to the maximum. Obama the Coke Head.

While people accepted Bush's admitting to a drinking problem, I'm not so sure people will give Obama a pass on cocaine use.

http://iowaindependent.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1594

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/11/as-iowa-nears-clinton-al_n_76235.html

He may get the nomination, but he'll crash and burn in the general. He hasn't been properly vetted yet.

This is now the third full election cycle which I’ve experienced through the web. It’s always a contentious process, as bloggers whom I’ve grown to respect and appreciate become polarized on MY candidate and tend to denigrate the rest. I always hope that, once a candidate is chosen, we can all get behind him or her and defeat the Republican troglodyte in the general election.

We are in full silly season now. However, instead of diving into the minutia of word-by-word analysis of each candidate’s statements, I prefer to take a more meta view. I cast my first Presidential vote against Richard Nixon and (reluctantly) for Hubert Humphrey. Generally, I’ve been voting with a clothespin firmly affixed to my nose ever since. I have no doubt that I will never cast a more critical vote than in 2008. Rather than extolling the magnificent spread of branches of this tree or the mighty, straight trunk of that one, I look at the American political forest and see vast swathes of sickened and lifeless groves, with plumes of smoke from democracy burning.

NO candidate is ideal. The only unequivocal choice I wanted, was for Al Gore. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be happening. Given that, I honestly feel I could support ANY Democrat running as opposed to ANY of the utterly venal Republican fools who think they are qualified and due to get theirs.

For me, no candidate has yet "made the sale" for me. I don’t like the candidacy of Hillary Clinton and I will explain why. However, if she becomes the candidate, I will happily support her and have no qualms about her likely choices for judgeships and especially, for SC justices. I would expect her to be reasonably progressive in her choices.

None of the current candidates has shown flawless judgment or historic honesty. They’re politicians after all. However, they all have strengths and weaknesses. My problem with the Clintons is that while generally satisfactory in their instincts, when Bill was President, he delayed, but did not halt or reverse the nation’s slide toward a new Gilded Age.

Ye shall know them by the company they keep. A partial list of Hilary Clinton’s advisors can be found : here. Look through the list of names. While some are decent, progressive voices, some of them are among the most repellent. As in the fallacy of reporting both sides of an argument, as if always equally true, allowing equal voice to the most intemperate and criminal mentalities, e.g. Kagan, Krystal, Pipes & Podheretz, etc. does not lend itself to any effective progress. Instead, it’s just an Insiders Club, financed by their vast cloud of corporate sponsors.

A huge number of her inner circle can be found currently serving at the Council on Foreign Relations

Among them, typically involved in Corporate contracting, is Lt. Gen. Daniel William Christman: Large stockholder and non-executive director of Metal Storm Ltd. With potentially hundreds of millions worth of contracts with the DoD.

To me, the most troubling is Martin K. Indyk . He is also founder of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The institute’s founding director, Martin Indyk, was previously research director of the leading pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac).
While Aipac targets Congress through the massive election campaign contributions that it coordinates and directs,Winep concentrates on influencing the media and the executive branch. The Winep membership shows the same interesting mix of experienced, foreign policy Democrats with true whack jobs.

Members of its Board of Advisors include Warren Christopher, Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Alexander Haig, Max Kampelman, Samuel W. Lewis, Edward Luttwak, Michael Mandelbaum, Robert McFarlane, Martin Peretz, Richard Perle, James Roche, Cheryl Halpern, George P. Shultz, R. James Woolsey, and Mortimer Zuckerman

And let’s not ignore Gen John M. “Jack” Keane. In January 2007, Keane and scholar Frederick W. Kagan released a policy paper, entitled "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq",[2] through the American Enterprise Institute that called for bringing security by putting around 30,000 additional American troops there for a period of at least 18 months. Keane currently sits on the board of directors of MetLife, General Dynamics and AlliedBarton.

Then there’s Lt. Gen. Donald L. Kerrick Donald L. Kerrick - Vice President, Strategic Development and International Business, General Dynamics

And while he’s been dismissed as unimportant by some here, I have big problems with severe war critic and proven Bush enemy, Michael O’Hanlon. He IS the prototypical MSM pundit and accomplished enabler of the authoritarian right. Glenn Greenwald had a good blog about him. In his anti-war past, O'Hanlon signed a letter and a statement on postwar Iraq published by the Project for the New American Century

There are many more examples. The point of this post is to explain why I’m unhappy with the prospect of electing ANOTHER experienced DLC/Corporate ally of the military contractor complex at a critical time in our beleaguered democracy. I want no more NAFTAs, 1996 Media Consolidation Act, or any other assaults on my freedoms. Some issues are just too important to compromise on. I would like to see immense change in our current, disastrous course.

Once again, I would support Hillary in a heartbeat if she wins the nomination. We have NO other choice. We can all have our favored candidates and argue forcefully for them. However, I sincerely hope that, after the sometimes shrill advocacy of one candidate at the expense of the others, that we can ALL come back together when necessary. It’s been my unhappy experience that, in each election cycle, there are some who never recover from their sense of loss.

Yes, Eriposte, we know you like Hilary.

For the record, I'm an Edwards supporter. But, if Obama or anyone else is 'automaticly disqualified' for office because acted accordingly at parties in high school and/or college, then we deserve the kind of asocial, secretive authoritarian incompetents that have plagued us in this decade. Worrying about private behaviors someone did decades ago and giving them a pass on public misdisdeeds in more recent times is a big reason why we're as screwed as we are.

Hillary had it right. Obama is a decent and admirable man but when it comes to battling Republicans, he's Obambi. He'd have done fine in the national politics of twenty years ago. But now Republicans don't just aim to defeat Democrats, they're out to annihilate us, as the Bush administration has made abundantly clear. Unfortunately, that means if we want to win, we need a candidate who completely understands their ruthlessness and how to combat it. I don't know of anyone more qualified on that score than Hillary Clinton.

DeminNewJ, Some of your links did not work.

"Republicans think his high-minded approach to issues could make him a sitting duck...." Eriposte, here is what Republicans really think: "My god, he's Black".

T2, I imagine the GOP reaction to Obama isn't that he's black, but that they all behave as though they've been cast in Blazing Saddles.

Let's take a deep breath and make sure that the real point of my post is understood. The issue I am raising is NOT the questionnaire. If you read towards the end of the post you will see that I point out that it would not be particularly surprising if Obama had liberal views and a voting record that was less liberal. That's normal and acceptable to me.

The fundamental point I am making through the examples in the post is that the Obama camp could have taken a very simple approach to this questionnaire. Rather than deny those were his views and claim he was for something in principle but against it in practice and other such gross nonsense that makes them look like bungling idiots, all they should have stopped with is: "Sen. Obama started his career with some very liberal positions but realized through his experience in the Senate, as is proven by his record, that there needs to be more moderation in our approach to governing." That's it! No other comments!

I'm all for making sure that we support whoever gets the nomination. But let's not delude ourselves any more that every candidate is equal. Let's not delude ourselves that if one candidate is saying things like "I'm for this in principle but against it in practice" that this candidate will be equally successful against the Republican Noise Machine as the other candidates that don't come out with these kind of incompetent responses to the idiotic and inevitable gotchas in the campaign trail.

For the record, I really like Sen. Obama as a person but his campaign tactics and ineptness just frighten the heck out of me. We should be discussing and debating this.

I don't care if you guys want to support Kucinich, Edwards, Dodd, Obama, or whoever else. Please do. I'm just telling you that I am not about to sit here and set ourselves up for a loss in the general election by keeping quiet about the kind of inept behaviors that have a high probability of resulting in that scenario. This election is too important to lose and sitting and having a cup of tea and ignoring these kinds of serious mistakes and hoping that magically every candidate has the exact same chance of winning in the GE would be suicidal for the Democratic party.

Whoops!

Thanks for checking on the links So6. I got carried away this morning and was running late for my morning commute, so I was careless of typos.

The links are:

List of Hillary’s advisors: here.

Washington Institute for Middle East Policy

Gen John M. “Jack” Keane

Michael O’Hanlon

Project for the New American Century

I have mainly used Wikipedia links because they contain much more information on each topic than the original source.

I realize that not liking Hillary is rare on the Left Coaster. I just wanted to add a little needed balance. My main point though, is that, Post-Primaries, we still all need to get along. There are critically important issues involved in this election that far transcend ordinary politics and I think we all need to keep our eyes on the prize.

Herbal tee,

I agree with you. We need to punch back hard if the media makes Obama's cocaine use or other personal aspects of his life from decades ago the focus.

Well, Obama certainly has the Clinton folks rattled, if one uses the hysterical nature of their attacks as a guidepost.

I somehow doubt these latest talking points from her HQ will be any more persuasive than the previous attacks have been.

Anyhow, keep it up. I like seeing desperation.

I'm just telling you that I am not about to sit here and set ourselves up for a loss in the general election by keeping quiet about the kind of inept behaviors that have a high probability of resulting in that scenario. This election is too important to lose and sitting and having a cup of tea and ignoring these kinds of serious mistakes and hoping that magically every candidate has the exact same chance of winning in the GE would be suicidal for the Democratic party.

Too true. I agree with you completely on this. the thing is, Obama's campaign isn't by far the only campaign to be running a poor primary and giving observers an idea of why they'd be awful in the general. Edwards' in particular has been showing that he or his staff are still not ready for prime time. And Richardson . . man, Richardson pretty much squandered that great break out over summer. How and Why?

I think it's admirable that grammar-school kids are getting into politics these days; frankly, I never get tired of the "I'm rubber, you're glue" argumentation method Geek deploys so ably here and at dKos. I think he may be vying for a position as official TLC troll, though it's going to be pretty tough to out-stupid the teabagger, or out-misinform young petey. Still, a kid's gotta have goals, eh?

idio, I agree about Edwards, and I'm sure disappointed by his campaign.

DeminNewJ, excellent post.

"I think he may be vying for a position as official TLC troll....."

Iamcoyote, we don't have any openings right now for trolls.

These discussions about Obama are coming just in time. The time to ask hard questions is now.

eriposte makes good points, and I agree that "the dog DID my homework" answer to the questionaire results was a mistake.

Imagine what the republicans could do with this TIVO quote from Oprah with Obama by her side in the general election:

"Ya know, Dr. King dreamed a dream. But we don't have to just dream the dream anymore. We get to vote that dream into reality."

Turning this election into an extension of the civil rights movement is an incredible mistake IMHO. It would be easy for a Rove replacement to use this quote to make the rednecks in the general think Oprah will be heading up Obama's Reparation Commission.

My question - doesn't anyone else wonder what Obama had to do in return for the favor that Rezko did for him? What can a state senator in Illinois do to repay a mob affiliate who spends over a half million dollars of his own money so that said senator can buy the house of his dreams?

If Obama is nominated, we are going to have 24 hour Obama Soprano tv. His campaign might as well adopt Blue Moon as their theme song and try and get him elected on the I-can't-believe-he-had-enough-nerve-to-do-this platform.

Lorelynn,
Got tired of making hidden comments? Lol.
The question about Rezko is perfectly legitimate. The land deal stinks.

Making hidden comments? Why would I make hidden commens? I don't understand.

Lorelynn, I was just joking about what happens to your comments at DailyKos.
The defenders of the "true" and "accurate" portrait of Obama don't like pesky reminders about his problems.

DeminNJ,

Other bloggers specifically have pointed out that Hillary's advisor list has some not so pleasant characters. All I'm trying to do is keep the discussion "fair and balanced" by pointing out that Obama is courting many not so pleasant characters, especially Republicans. (Incidentally, in my post yesterday I highlighted O'Hanlon - but BTW he is a "supporter" - not really an advisor to her campaign, if you read the fine print.)

I don't disagree with your points about the weakness of every candidate. But some weaknesses are worse than others. And this is the time to have that debate, not after the nominee has been picked.

As for Clinton support at TLC, let's be candid. I've been trying to rebut the mountain of hate, lies and just general BS about her out there because hardly anyone is doing it. Can you honestly say that there is not enough coverage out in the media and blogs about Clinton's associates, "triangulation", her alleged lack of candor, all round problems with the Clinton dynasty, etc. etc. etc.? Likewise, are you telling me that the coverage in the media and blogs has been filled with equal levels of criticism about Obama?