Obama a victim of Senate votes

By Ed Lasky

Democrat Presidential candidate Barack Obama engages in more obfuscation to bolster his sinking poll numbers. Stung by the Jeremiah Wright sermon tapes, Obama spins a new story to try to regain support from the independents and Reagan Democrats whose support he enjoyed less than two weeks ago. Robin Toner examines the process in the International Herald-Tribune.

Rated as the most liberal member of the Senate by the non-partisan and highly-regarded National Journal, he now claims his United States Senate voting record just looks liberal because "the Senate is so ideologically polarized it is hard not to end up on one side or the other". He glides away fromt he liberal label, saying, "a lot of these old labels don't apply anymore."

Why should he take responsibility for those (remember those "present" votes)? Obama blames votes that "are purposely designed to divide people".

Then why do all the other Senators (99 to be exact) fill such a broad spectrum to the right of him?

If votes are deliberately designed to divide people, why do all the other Senators fall to his right?

Will this guy ever give a straight story? He is afraid his post-racial image has been tarnished by Pastor Wright, so he changes his story to try to distance himself from Wright -- a still unfolding work in process. Now, as he sees his support slipping away among independents and Reagan Democrats, he tries to shift the view that he is liberal by blaming some sort of machinations by the other 99 Senators. It is all their fault!

Not to worry. He proclaims that if he is president he "will set the terms of the debate" so presumably legislation will not be purposely designed to be polarizing. I may not have been a constitutional law lecturer like the Senator, but I remember that Congress makes laws and Congressmen draft legislation.