I was taken to task recently by an acquaintance for saying I find listening to President Obama pointless since I don't believe a single thing he says. I now await an apology:
Barack Obama misled Americans for his own political benefit when he claimed in the 2008 election to oppose same sex marriage for religious reasons, his former political strategist David Axelrod writes in a new book, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.
“I’m just not very good at bullshitting,” Obama told Axelrod, after an event where he stated his opposition to same-sex marriage, according to the book.
Axelrod writes that he knew Obama was in favor of same-sex marriages during the first presidential campaign, even Obama publicly said he only supported civil unions, not full marriages. Axelrod also admits to counseling Obama to conceal that position for political reasons. “Opposition to gay marriage was particularly strong in the black church, and as he ran for higher office, he grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me, and modified his position to support civil unions rather than marriage, which he would term a ‘sacred union,’ ” Axelrod writes.
[. . .]
As a state senate candidate in 1996, Obama filled out a questionnaire saying “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” But 12 years later as a candidate for president, Obama told Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church that marriage could only extend to heterosexual couples. “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman,” Obama said at the time. “Now, for me as a Christian — for me — for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.”
After two years in office, Obama began telling reporters he was “evolving” on the issue, and supported the repeal of the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act.
Yes, yes, I know, most politicians do these sorts of things -- it's the nature of the beast that they will say whatever it takes to get them from one opinion poll to the next. So letting Obama's deception evolution get to me is merely an indication of my own political prejudice. Feel free to insert "Bush lied, people died" in here.
But he's just so damn smug when he throws out his whoppers. "I'm just not very good at bullshitting." Oh, please.
Comments
Joe, let's add to your list:
1) "It is clear, however, if left unchecked Saddam Hussein will increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." Hillary Rodham Clinton, 10/10/2000
2)"I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to this country." John Kerry 10/9/02
3) "We all know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Al Gore 9/3/02
4) "We have know for many years Saddam is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." Ted Kennedy 7/2/02
5)" He had ignored the mandates of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them" Democrat Senator Carl Levin 9/19/02
6) "Saddam Hussein has been in engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to the countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
Nance Pelosi 12/16/98
Joe, you should read Judge Silberman's article in the Wall Street Journal. It might clarify some things for you.
No Becky, you should read my posting in the letters section inder "Why is Brian Williams being flogged publicy", it will clarify a few things for you.
Ah, the tu quoque logic fallacy or, as we like to call it on the editorial page, the "so's your old man" defense. But, of course, the attempt to justify a lie by citing other lies is an acknolwedgement that there has indeed been a lie. We could go back and forth all day citing the lies and hypocrisies the other side while overlooking the ones on our own side. And these days, alas, we probably will.