Paul Krugman Hits Obama’s Attacks on Edwards re 527s
By NoQuarter on December 24, 2007 at 12:07 PM in Clinton, John Edwards, Obama, Social Security, Unions
BIG PICTURE Preface: This is about saving the imperiled MIDDLE CLASS.
In a nutshell, with a tip to Campskunk’s post: Both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards (see a pro-Edwards diary) have received considerable support from unions. Obama has not gotten that support, or that money, so he’s pissed. His response? He attacks John Edwards, and the messages the unions are sending out. Which does not — I repeat, not — endear him to unions that regularly support Democrats.
Obama has not gotten support, writes Krugman in today’s NYTimes, “in part, perhaps, because his message of ‘a new kind of politics’ that will transcend bitter partisanship doesn’t make much sense to union leaders who know, from the experience of confronting corporations and their political allies head on, that partisanship isn’t going away anytime soon.”
[UPDATE: Time's Mark Halperin at The Page has this: "Edwards Campaign Charges Obama 'Wearing Rose-Colored Glasses'." I think that's a fair assessment: Obama's too green for a national race, especially a general election race. In time, perhaps. In time. He's young.]
Further, Krugman says, Obama may be preaching GOP talking points again — “carelessly and cynically” — just as Obama did on Social Security, which I’ve written about here before:
O.K., that’s politics. But now Mr. Obama has lashed out at Mr. Edwards because two 527s — independent groups that are allowed to support candidates, but are legally forbidden from coordinating directly with their campaigns — are running ads on his rival’s behalf. They are, Mr. Obama says, representative of the kind of “special interests” that “have too much influence in Washington.”
The thing, though, is that both of these 527s represent union groups — in the case of the larger group, local branches of the S.E.I.U. who consider Mr. Edwards the strongest candidate on health reform. So Mr. Obama’s attack raises a couple of questions.
First, does it make sense, in the current political and economic environment, for Democrats to lump unions in with corporate groups as examples of the special interests we need to stand up to?
Second, is Mr. Obama saying that if nominated, he’d be willing to run without support from labor 527s, which might be crucial to the Democrats? If not, how does he avoid having his own current words used against him by the Republican nominee?
Part of what happened here, I think, is that Mr. Obama, looking for a stick with which to beat an opponent who has lately acquired some momentum, either carelessly or cynically failed to think about how his rhetoric would affect the eventual ability of the Democratic nominee, whoever he or she is, to campaign effectively. In this sense, his latest gambit resembles his previous echoing of G.O.P. talking points on Social Security.
:::::::::::
From my Nov. 15 post, links to more on Obama’s borrowing of GOP talking points on Social Security:
- “Obama clueless on Social Security — Mark Weisbrot: Memo to Obama: No Rush to “Fix” Social Security” (”The right has created powerful and lasting myths about the state of the program’s finances.”)
- “Why, Barack, why?” — columnist and economics professor Paul Krugman at his New York Times blog
There’s more in the Nov. 15 post, including a rant against Tim Russert’s “expertise” on Social Security.
DU has cited Cofer Black’s role in counterterror before 9-11.
Earlier in the prior evening I made some assertions about the CIA tapes at another forum:
The piece goes on, the link quotes Larry:
Don’t provide Black immunity, it did nothing for Goodling or Ollie North in terms of expediency or true justice to this point.
This was a contention I’ve asserted prior and need to state again:
The DU thread has a lot of items woven together. It’s trying to claim we developed further contacts with Al Qaeida past the MEK(MAK) days of UBL’s work against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
This even after the tower bombings and embassy bombings.
That doesn’t seem remotely plausible. Even spooks have a line you don’t cross with regards to targeting your own. People working outside of the IC are another story.
The Bosnia/Kosovo conflict, the Chechen support cells, both work to the advantage of a lobby that the Republican House leadership directly interacted with.
This is part of the musical chairs interlude on the Gingrich/Hastert/DeLay dance.
Tom DeLay flew to east Europe and did jet set partying with lobbyists known to have associated within the loops on Al Qaeida. His daughter took a champagne bath on that jet, it flew across the EU, there’s so many possible SIGINTS intercepts of what that entailed amongst NATO and EU members, enough to bury him under the Hague.
Hastert took vested ties with other groups operating venture interests for pipeline deals across the Caspain, in particular Turkey and several oil-stans. Sibel Edmonds encountered static in dealing with intercepts of these people and remains willing to disclose provided the major media gives her an unedited voice.
Newt Gingrich tried to obstruct any action vs. Al Qaeida in its initial days, countering with “Wag the Dog” while he was undergoing an affair with a staffer and live-in girlfriends while his wife was on her deathbed.
That’s where the connection to Kosovo comes into play. It wasn’t the CIA supporting enemies of troops being part of an international relief effort and police action.
It was donors to Republican coffers.
Too much domestic information is in the program to have been all CIA as well. This stuff falls under FBI jurisdiction. IMO the idea was to try and develop leads within cells.
It’s clear that leadership fimbled, not analysts or those gathering INTEL.
Someone put the brakes on connecting the dots.
The group most likely to do this appears to have worked in concert with several big political names in the donor spectrum of foreign lobbies with ties to energy venture in Southeast Europe, Turkey, and the Caucuses.
What of the operations “north of iran” that had a signit mission? Those were not “sanctioned” ? and staffed by third parties?
His daughter took a champagne bath on that jet, it flew across the EU
That is either eeeEWWW or not his daughter.Wonder if Flint got his monies worth.
“Out of nowhere, a complete unknown.”
-Carl Spackler- “Caddy Shack”
We here at Non Peer Competitor Intelligence Associates have high confidence that this guy Obama is a deep implant mole for Plutocratic entities.
Seasoned Grittings,
Mad Mikey
Director
NPCIA
npcia AT bellsouth DOT net
Speaking of GOP talking points, didn’t Swartznager in a CA special election talk about ’special interests’ — meaning school teacher, nurses, etc?
Yea, but they made him choke on his big fat cigar for that one.
And Obama mentioned Arnold by name the other day, saying he’d welcome such Republicans for cabinet posts in his administration.
SusanunPC:
I would like to apologize to you and all the other women (and men) that post here, that my attempt at sarcastic humor attracted comments from such a sorry excuse for a human being on the previous thread.
I will in the future try not to use shark bait.
TeakWood- I don’t think you’re in any way responsible for that other commenter’s bad behavior. So rest easy.
Thanks …On a brighter note :>) MMMMMMMM bunt cake batter!!! UMMMM
Oh gosh, I missed that, Teakwoodkite. Not to worry. Now I’m curious, though, and will have to check it out
Hope you’re having fun and eating lots. I’m nibbling before my guests come over … this is going to turn into a 5,000-calorie day, I fear.
Here’s a superbly referenced, pithy diary on Obama’s turn to the right, and what Paul Krugman termed in his NYT blog, “Obama goes Harry and Louise“: “after attacking unions as special interests, now Obama is going after universal health care with his advertisements in Iowa. …”
“Obama goes Harry and Louise”; Call it the audacity of cynicism
People working outside of the IC were shaping the actual policy commands at higher levelsm this carried over into actionable areas of the IC.
The IC itself was getting gag orders on the work it could do or having programs rolled back(Clarke’s demotion, Bin Laden unit’s shelving, Alec Station deprioritized, etc.)
The people working in concert to shape this policy were working with vested lobby interests for parties poised to benefit the most from our subsequent actions in Persia, or even some with suspected ties to the problem.
Cofer profited the most, getting Blackwater deals from the State Department.
He’s an ace in the hole on the three card monty that has been made into high stakes profiteering.
Those official operations were ones Edmonds had items to interpret, and she was getting stonewalled within the IC by appointed people tracing back to the lobby interests with Hastert, etc.
The third parties had undue influence to shaping policy, and after 9-11 were integrated within the subcontract structure to greater degrees. Interests between these and the donor/appointment cartel of Bush were impediments to effective interception of the threat we have made wars over.
The torture tapes were not destoryed entirely. Record of them remains in court transactions. Spooks got more on it as well.
Not just tapes past 9-11. Some include prior information, things that set people’s hair on fire were being ignored and shut down within the walls of the IC under direction of people the Shrub set into place.
Jawbreaker wanted an airstrike at Tora Bora, just one example. One guy is above him in his specialty field, Cofer should have to answer up as to why there was a tactical and strategic breakdown when the noose was being applied.
Rod isn’t the one, he’s just a scapegoat if he’s given immunity. Look past him, higher. He didn’t do any action that wasn’t a result of being directed to do so. Even if he made the call to loosen the noose, there was a reason coming from a direct superior.
I hope he is given immunity to the degree he was following a “lawful” order. From what I have seen if you give someone limited immunity you get a limited version of the “truth”.
Look past him, higher.
Pas de cider? eh? Even Vader answers to a dark lord. Cheney has never been a “prime” number…Bush never. When Bush Sr was passed up and ‘given’ the CIA(?)…it showed the same thing. I need to find where I stashed my tinfoil hat now…right next to the duck tape i think…
I wonder how people stop from going crazy in this line of work. I think it would hard not go Bolton bonkers…
Best wish to you and yours. Thanks for forensics lessons.
The American middle class is under attack and we need a populist fighter like John Edwards. In my view, Edwards is not the only the most electable Democratic contender but also the best choice.
[...] Special Interests. (!) Several on-line sources are picking up on this, campskunk at DailyKos and SusanUnPC at NoQuarter among them. For the best background to the importance of unions to the United States as we know it [...]