A Crack in the Obama Foundation
By Andy Hobin
Posted On February 01, 2006
Following yesterday’s peak of the rise and rise of newly-minted Justice Alito, the national dialogue shifts to what can best be described as a sort of Senatorial fall out. That is, who in the Senate chambers is poised to feel the wrath of his or her constituents in regards to votes cast in the matters of cloture or confirmation? Wendy Long predicts on National Review Online that Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) down vote for confirmation will spark the ire of a significantly more conservative post-“Katrita” Louisiana. Lincoln Chaffee (R-RI) was the lone Republican nay, though his left-leaning voters shouldn't mind. High-profile Democratic stalwart Robert Byrd (D-WV) surprisingly threw full support to the nominee, voting for both cloture and confirmation. Unlike the three other Democrats that voted similarly, Byrd's yeas could come back to haunt him as his age and mounting Republican opposition loom over the coming November.
So as the wave of anti-Alito sentiment rose to a media-saturated crest among the Senate Democrats in the last several days, you've gotta give credit to Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), flying under the radar as he tossed in his two cents on the liberal strategy of dissent. “We need to recognize, because Judge Alito will be confirmed, that, if we're going to oppose a nominee that we've got to persuade the American people that, in fact, their values are at stake,” the Boston Globe reported Obama as stating Monday. “There's one way to guarantee that the judges who are appointed to the Supreme Court are judges that reflect our values. And that's to win elections.” Makes sense for him to make such grounding, let's-take-a-breath-here remarks. After all, the enormously popular junior senator from Illinois has also taken on a leading role in his party's ethics reform campaign. He publicly distanced himself from the bitter rhetoric of Harry Belafonte and other Bush haters on Meet the Press. Next month, he's up for a Grammy for the audio recording of his memoir, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. And he still has plenty of political capital to cash in on from his stirring 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address, which even made staunch conservatives like myself say, “Wow.”
Yet, in the face of his sunny, noble bipartisan advocacy for responsible senate behavior regarding the judiciary, Obama voted not only against confirmation of Justice Alito, but quietly supported Senators Kennedy and Kerry in their unprecedented and admittedly unwarranted filibuster attempt. This from the man who only recently observed on ABC'S This Week, “There is an over-reliance on the part of the Democrats for procedural maneuvers.”
Wisely, Obama kept his most positive remarks limited to the most heavily scrutinized media outlets instead of bloviating doomsday ramblings about the end of American civilization on the Senate floor like Senators Durbin, Kennedy, and Biden. While the usual suspects amongst the Democrats will feel the usual wrath of the conservative pundits and blogosphere, there will be no Senatorial fall out for Obama. Noting what I predict to be a total absence of publicity that Obama's two-faced behavior of the last several days will receive, quite simply, the man doesn't give the right much ammo against him. With a cool first year behind him that included an appearance on Oprah, a Grammy nomination, a profile in GQ, and near completely silent conservative opposition, the man who is stealthily generating whispers of a possible appearance on the general election ballot within ten to fifteen years should not, under any circumstances, be taken for granted because of his comparatively brief Senate tenure. Look what happened with John Edwards.
Keep an eye on Obama. His Alito hypocrisy is finally the first hint of his true colors. The nectar by the nettles to keep the Senator in check will be early, consistent Republican vigilance. We've just been handed our springboard. No better time for the plunge.
Andy Hobin lives in New York City.
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