Obama's a Political Coward

Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism.

-- Barack Obama accepting the Democratic Nomination in Denver, August 2008

Politicians are famous for making promises they know they can't keep. Politicians are known for playing up small things into political distractions. Politicians often see themselves as the one person who can fix a broken world.

And I have news for you: Barack Obama is a politician. But he not just any politician. He is a political coward. Just as Keith Olbermann accused President Bush of using national security for political gain, President Obama is doing it fervently and transparently.

On issue after issue he has not shown backbone to debate his rivals and instead boils down his words into specious, nuanced attacks.

Obama v. Hillary

Take a look at the 2008 Democratic primaries. When Hillary pulled an upset in New Hampshire, the game had to change. So rather than debating Hillary on a health plan and showing how his might help working Americans, the debate devolved into pure phoniness.

Rumblings began that former President Clinton was a racist-- for stating that Obama didn't actually have a record to stand on. Racial undertones were played upon, even making it out in the open, delivering South Carolina to Obama. Rather than debate Hillary on national security, Obama simply changed to a simpler message, more easily digestible to young people and hard core leftists: Hillary was Bush's stooge for voting for the Iraq War. Not because Hillary looked at classified evidence or thought that Saddam was a threat. Nope. She might as well have had stock in Halliburton.

2008 General Election

After losing the popular vote in the Democratic primaries, but still winning the nomination (why is it acceptable for Obama, not the demon Bush?) Obama faced off against possibly the most bipartisan member of Congress. But his campaign was running low on steam and had to boil the race down to a couple of factors:

McCain's a stooge of Bush. Sound familiar? It was just too easy to push this line again, especially with so many of the under-30 crowd thinking that liking Bush was not avant-garde. Take a look at a key passage from his DNC speech:

John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time?

Translation: George W. Bush is dumb. McCain likes Bush. Do you really want to be dumb too?

Talk about a sophomoric argument.

And when McCain chose former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, the Obama team was knocked off message. She was young, popular, and inexperienced. Even though Obama had less executive experience, the bell rung that she must have no experience, so she's not qualified!

However, the strongest message that Team Obama and pop culture sent out was that-- Sarah Palin is dumb. Not that her policy choices were poor because of xyz, but no, she's dumb. She goes to a church where they say wacky things. Obama would have never done that. But in the end, the message was not to debate, but to belittle.

McCain challenged Obama to ten town hall debates. Obama realized that the more that he spoke without a TelePrompter, the dumber he sounded. So Team Obama declined. Who wanted to talk about policy, anyway? It's just much easier to promise Americans in a recession hope and change instead of a job.


Barack Obama depends on charisma and a few catchphrases to make up for a lack of political intelligence and backbone. Rather than actually debate issues and talk about specific points, he instead brings forward broad generalizations and belittles his opponents. He also relies on smooth deceptions from pop culture to keep the kids thinking he's cool. Kinda makes you wonder how he got elected.

I'll try to put up Part Two soon enough. If you like this post, please email it or share it or feel free to use it.