Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Obama Editorial in 2005: Conservatives act "Dumb" and are "Absolutist"

Daily Kos is a liberal bastion on the internet.  Run by Markos Moulitsas, its founder, the site has tens of thousands of members and hundreds of thousands of comments.  In 2005, one member was then-Senator Barack Obama.  And yes, as the Nation confirmed in November of that year, it was indeed the real Barack Obama and not simply someone using his name.

On Daily Kos Mr. Obama wrote two "diaries" to much fanfare.  Diaries are simply short or lengthy rants, ravings, arguments, or news.  The first was written on September 30, 2005 and was entitled, "Tone, Truth, and the Democratic Party."

You know all of that new rhetoric that the President has been using?  You know, about how Republicans should compromise?  Well, that is not found here.  In fact, Mr. Obama went overboard to attack conservatives.  Just one example:
I am not drawing a facile equivalence here between progressive advocacy groups and right-wing advocacy groups.  The consequences of their ideas are vastly different. Fighting on behalf of the poor and the vulnerable is not the same as fighting for homophobia and Halliburton.
Oh, I forgot that liberals only fight for the poor and needy while evil conservatives are all homophobic morons who kill for oil.  I'm glad that Mr. Obama pointed this out.
"I wonder how Kos likes my latest rant..."
And here's an even stupider rant:
The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job.  After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart.  It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for.  It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion.  But that's our job. 
Sigh.  And this is just his first diary.  There's a whole other one where he continues his backwards thinking.  It was entitled, "Thanks for the Feedback."  It was written on October 20, 2005.  It was much shorter, however, as it seems that Mr. Obama was a little creeped-out by some of the comments that DK readers left him.  One short excerpt:
I also agree that it is the job of Democratic elected officials to help shape public opinion, and not just respond passively to opinion thats been aggressively shaped by the Republicans PR machinery.  I am simply suggesting, based on my experience, that people will respond to a powerfully progressive agenda when its couched in optimism, pragmatism and our shared American ideals.
So, as President, Mr. Obama plays golf.  As a State Senator, he wrote diaries on liberal social networks.  Sigh.

Please bookmark!

1 comment:

  1. That's weird, because I know a lot of conservatives who would say the same about Obama

    ReplyDelete