Silly Little Country

An Unattractive Feature of The One

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posts, I think from my impressions pretty accurately, on one of the features I find quite unattractive in Barack Obama. Which is, his

penchant for "exaggerating what divides us" -- that is, pretending to break from a particular policy of President Bush even as he adopts that policy in large measure. This particularly offensive form of grandstanding runs counter, of course, to candidate Obama's promise to be a post-partisan who would seek common ground with the political opposition. It thus marks Obama as a phony twice over; as the insincerity of the campaign promise is confirmed by the pretense of a sharp breal [sic, typo] with a specific policy of his predecessor.

Of course if you campaign on "change" you have to try to convince people it is there.
This post is about pretending he is taking a new direction with "signing statements". As Paul summarizes:

To drive home the point, Ed examines Obama's first signing statement. It raises five constitutional concerns, all of which were prominent among those most frequently raised by Bush in his signing statements.
It was never difficult to predict that Obama would generally adhere to Bush administration policies designed to protect the power of the presidency and to promote national security. It's the misdirection that some may find surprising.

For all the talk about being post-partisan it is my perception Obama has gone out of his way to demonize Bush's leadership. Fair enough, I think, but don't pretend you aren't doing it. And in the end, what is saddest is that the major media don't take him to task. One could possibly find evidence to show Bush did this to Clinton but I sure do not remember it.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 12:19 PM