If you’re an American voter, you need to see and understand this. Yeah, yeah. I know everyone’s all punchy and hostile, but please stay with me for three minutes.
This is incredible dishonesty from Barack Obama—dishonesty for which there is no plausible defense (but if you think you have one, I’d love to hear from you). Thanks to Dr. Thomas Sowell and this column for calling it to my attention.
This video of (then) Senator Obama addressing a group of black ministers on June 5, 2007 (re)surfaced several days ago. Have a look. Pay particular attention starting about 1:00.
Make sure you’re following. This is Senator Barack Obama, racially demagoguing the Hurricane Katrina victims with the Stafford Act and its supposed oppressing effect on them. He’s fervently claiming the government has no problem extending this helping hand for 9/11 victims and Hurricane Andrew victims, but the Hurricane Katrina victims are too black to waive the Stafford Act.
The facts are:
- The U.S. Senate voted, 80-14, to waive the Stafford Act for Hurricane Katrina victims less than two weeks before Senator Obama gave this speech.
- Senator Obama voted against waiving the Stafford Act for Hurricane Katrina victims.
Got it? Obama is on about the Stafford Act being a racist cudgel against Katrina victims, when it was waived less than two weeks earlier and he voted not to waive it.
I think the only exonerating narrative through that is that he was demonically possessed. Anyone want to advance such?
What an absolute sleaze is Barack Obama.
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Silly peon. If Obama knew he voted No, and he believes himself infallible, therefore, by all logic, he would have assumed the No votes won.
He was wrong in saying it hadn’t been waived. No doubt there.
Giving him crap for “voting against” the waiver doesn’t really hold up, and I’ll explain why:
The bill he voted against was a spending bill that had 10 different titles (in other words 10 entirely different and unrelated matters of spending). There was a previous version of this bill that was very much the same as the one that ended up becoming law, the only difference was it contained a timetable for troop withdrawal in Iraq.
Obama voted YEA on that version of the bill. The vote was mostly split along party lines on that bill in the Senate (51 YEAs, 47 NAYs). This version passed both the House and Senate but was Vetoed by President Bush and the House was unable to overturn the President’s Veto.
Within days, a new version of the bill was introduced and began making its way through Congress. The main difference was the timetable for withdrawal was removed. In the Senate the votes swung drastically as now the vote was 80 YEAs, 14 NAYs.
12 of of the senators changed their vote from the previous version (either a YEA or abstain) to a NAY (including then Senator Obama). 41 of the senators changed their vote from the previous version (either a NAY or abstain) to a YEA for the new version.
Given almost 2/3 of the Senate changed their vote from one version of the bill to another where the main difference was the timetable for troop withdrawal, I think it’s safe to say the senators weren’t as concerned with the Stafford Act waiver. If you wanted to go down that path, you could easily say almost 2/3 of the senate flip flopped on the Stafford Act waiver, Other Katrina related support and funding, additional funding for the wars, agricultural spending, etc, but that’d be silly in my opinion.
The real problem here is they cram lots of stuff into one piece of legislation. It introduces the likelihood that a more domestic-support issue might get bull dozed over by a bigger, hot-topic issue getting all of the YEA or NAY votes when the two really should be dealt with in separate votes.
The other problem this introduces is exactly what’s flying about the media right now: “XXX person voted against YYY good cause in ZZZ(date)” because they were probably paying more attention to some other 1/10 of the bill and not the 1/10 that you’re railing on him for. In this case, if you were to rail one senator for voting no, you should harp on the following 59 senators for voting no on at least one of the version of the bill:
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feingold (D-WI)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Obama (D-IL)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sanders (I-VT)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thomas (R-WY)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
(That’s 47 Republicans, 10 Democrats, 2 Independents)
If you want to harp on those that voted no both times, then just harp on Coburn (R-OK) as he was the lone senator to do so.
The analogy I give to people is go try and vote for something like all of Alabama’s 11 state amendments on the ballot this year with either all YES or NO. It would make no sense and you couldn’t be blamed for one of your YES’ or NO’s if you had to blanket vote like they’re doing. It’d just be silly.
Also, my sources:
Roll Call on previous version of bill: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00126
Roll Call on final version of bill that became law: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00181
Tahm, I understand. I’m frustrated with the earmarking and other Trojan horse tactics that go on too. But however Obama voted against it, he did vote against it, and I can’t swallow that he didn’t realize it. That carries significant weight with me when he’s pulling the crap he is in this video.
There is no indictment of the legislative process here, expressed or implied. There is timely disregard of inconvenient facts. Textbook Machiavellianism.