Obama Trys to Have It Both Ways By Avoiding Votes
In the December 22 Concord Monitor , it stated that Barack Obama seeks to find common ground, but from his record it looks more like fence straddling to me. He skipped the tough vote on Iran and then distorted what the bill authorized and criticized those who voted for it (including his mentor Dick Durbin, IL-D.) He never had to vote on the Iraq war as a sworn in U.S. Senator pledged to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. A Senator's oath places quite a different set of responsibilities on its bearers from those borne by a private citizen, and yet he acts as if they were equivalent. They certainly are not, and acting as if they are, does him no credit in my view, even though I also was strongly opposed to the invasion of Iraq from the beginning.
Obama has a history of dodging commitments on tough votes. In a New York Times article on December 20, Raymond Hernandez and Christopher Drew report that Obama's often voted just "present" in the Illinois Senate. They write:
"In 1999, Barack Obama was faced with a difficult vote in the Illinois legislature — to support a bill that would let some juveniles be tried as adults, a position that risked drawing fire from African-Americans, or to oppose it, possibly undermining his image as a tough-on-crime moderate. In the end, Mr. Obama chose neither to vote for nor against the bill. He voted “present,” effectively sidestepping the issue, an option he invoked nearly 130 times as a state senator."
He, of course, can give all sorts of reasons why he would just vote "present" and not "for" or "against", and this doesn't include the votes taken when he wasn't even "present" during his years in the state senate. This isn't seeking common ground. Obama is trying to have it both ways by avoiding recorded votes on tough issues for which he would be answerable. Where is the strong leadership in this?
