Trouble In Paradise

The New York Times editorial board ripped into Barack Obama yesterday and showed a level of naivete that previously had been reserved for Obama himself. They would do better to take the conservative approach to dealing with Obama's rhetoric: Don't believe a word he says.

A couple clips:

Now there seems to be a new Barack Obama on the hustings. First, he broke his promise to try to keep both major parties within public-financing limits for the general election. His team explained that, saying he had a grass-roots-based model and that while he was forgoing public money, he also was eschewing gold-plated fund-raisers. These days he’s on a high-roller hunt.

Even his own chief money collector, Penny Pritzker, suggests that the magic of $20 donations from the Web was less a matter of principle than of scheduling. “We have not been able to have much of the senator’s time during the primaries, so we have had to rely more on the Internet,” she explained as she and her team busily scheduled more than a dozen big-ticket events over the next few weeks at which the target price for quality time with the candidate is more than $30,000 per person.

We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games.

New McCain Ad

Now the whole idea of flip-flopping doesn't necessarily bother me as much as some people. Having been generally liberal as a teen and college student I necessarily flip-flopped on a whole host of issues in becoming a conservative. If John McCain cares to flip-flop on his destructive stance against drilling in ANWR then I'll cheer that awakening wholeheartedly.

The issue of Barack Obama breaking his pledge to take public financing however, is a different story. This is something he pledged on principle (that money corrupts politicians), a principle that is as important as any other in his message of bringing "change" to Washington.

By doing this Barack Obama showed the true believers what conservatives have seen all along: that he is simply another in a long line of dishonest politicians who will say whatever it takes to advance themselves and that he has no core principles.

This McCain ad hits Obama on this point and I'm pleasantly surprised. Perhaps they fired the guy who conceived his first "I'm John McCain and I hate war" ad and actually have some talented people ready to make this interesting. We can only hope.