NY Sun editorial: Call it “The Obama Straddle”
The Obama Straddle
Editorial of The New York Sun
June 12, 2008
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It’s starting to look like a pattern. Call it the Obama straddle. He pals around with anti-Israel figures like Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi, then shows up at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to announce that Israel’s security is “sacrosanct.” He’s called for withdrawing combat troops from Iraq within six months of taking office, but his Iraq adviser wrote a paper calling for keeping 60,000 to 80,000 troops in Iraq through 2010.
He says he won’t shop at Wal-Mart, yet his top economic adviser praises the company as a progressive success story. He said of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother.” And then when he came under more political pressure, he proceeded to disown not only Rev. Wright, but also the Trinity United Church of Christ, which he proceeded to quit.
He ran as an opponent of Nafta in the Ohio primary, yet he sent an aide off to reassure Canada it was just politics, and now that the general election is upon us, he’s assuring everyone that free trade is a cause in which he believes. He claims to represent a new post-partisan politics that will bring America together, yet his policies are hard-left: the largest tax increase since World War II.