I don't know whether what I'm about to quote from is the Talk Left pieceGlenn Reynolds linked earlier, but I couldn't get it to open, and I found this anyway. Whether it's the same piece or not, it's just too rich for me to ignore.
Former San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzalez looks at Barack Obama's record from a leftist point of view. To say that he finds it lacking is to put it mildly. I'm not an Obama supporter, but the points Gonzalez ticks off damn near looks like it was compiled for Republicans for Obama! And while I've been very easy with Obama, I have to say that if this stuff is even half true, I can breathe a bit easier.
I'll try to include most of the points in abbreviated form, but the whole piece is worth reading closely, and please bear in mind that the following has not verified for accuracy by me. According to Gonzalez, Obama committed all of the following sins:
....voted to approve every war appropriation the Republicans have put forward, totaling over $300 billion. He also voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State despite her complicity in the Bush Administration's various false justifications for going to war in Iraq.
[...]
....voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act in July 2005, easily the worse attack on civil liberties in the last half-century.....
[...]
...campaign[ed] for Senator Joseph Lieberman who faced a tough challenge by anti-war candidate Ned Lamont. At a Democratic Party dinner attended by Lamont, Obama called Lieberman "his mentor"....
[...]
...committed to keeping enough soldiers in Iraq to "carry out our counter-terrorism activities there" which includes "striking at al Qaeda in Iraq."...
[...]
...joined Republicans in passing a law dubiously called the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) that would shut down state courts as a venue to hear many class action lawsuits...
[...]
...an amendment he voted on as part of a recent bankruptcy bill before the US Senate would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent. Inexplicably, Obama voted against it, although it would have been the beginning of setting these predatory lending rates under federal control. Even Senator Hillary Clinton supported it.
[...]
...voted to limit the recovery that victims of medical malpractice could obtain through the courts.
[...]
...came out against a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872.
[...]
...[says] he had passed a bill requiring nuclear plants to promptly report radioactive leaks... [but he actually he took the teeth out of it]
[...]
...voted in favor of $8 billion worth of corn subsidies in 2006 alone, when most of that money should have been committed to alternative energy sources such as solar, tidal and wind.
[...]
...opposed single-payer bill HR676, sponsored by Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers in 2006, although at least 75 members of Congress supported it.
[...]
...Obama's own plan has been widely criticized for leaving health care industry administrative costs in place and for allowing millions of people to remain uninsured. "Sicko" filmmaker Michael Moore ridiculed it saying, "Obama wants the insurance companies to help us develop a new health care plan-the same companies who have created the mess in the first place."
[...]
...cast the deciding vote against an amendment to a September 2005 Commerce Appropriations Bill, proposed by North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, that would have prohibited US trade negotiators from weakening US laws that provide safeguards from unfair foreign trade practices.
[...]
...gave a speech at AIPAC, America's pro-Israeli government lobby, wherein he disavowed his previous support for the plight of the Palestinians.
[...]
...wouldn't have his picture taken with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom when visiting San Francisco for a fundraiser in his honor because Obama was scared voters might think he supports gay marriage
[...]
...supports [the death penalty], while other politicians are fighting to stop it.
[...]
...joined Republicans in voting to build 700 miles of double fencing on the Mexican border (The Secure Fence Act of 2006), abandoning 19 of his colleagues who had the courage to oppose it.
[...]
...opposed initiating impeachment proceedings against the president...
Sheesh!
And this Obama guy calls himself a Democrat? Who'd have thought that all these years he was a secret tool of the right wing agenda?
(Now I'm wishing more than ever that I hadn't let RepublicansforObama.com lapse!)
Gonzalez concludes:
I remain more loyal to my values, and I'm glad to say that I want no part in the Obama craze sweeping our country.
Well, as a McCain supporter I can hardly describe myself as being into Obamamania. But I'm tempted to give the guy another long look. Gonzalez makes him appear to be not only to the right of Hillary, but substantially so.
After going through the Gonzalez post, I'm now finally able to read the link which wouldn't work earlier. It's a post by Jeralyn Merritt which approvingly links the Gonzalez post, but without the details. (It was fortuitous that I took the time to read source link in the time I couldn't get the post which linked it to open.)
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
As the old saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows.
Maybe it's time for some folks to take a vow of celibacy, a least until 2009.