The Big Republican Lie: Obama is the Most Liberal Senator

[Dardedar]

DAR
I was quite amazed that the Mclaughlin Group passed this whopper along repeatedly and no one gave it the smack down. I didn't realize it was actually being taken seriously by anyone outside of Faux News.

OBAMA IS THE MOST LIBERAL SENATOR: THE BIG REPUBLICAN LIE I WISH WAS TRUE

The highest priority talking point the RNC has given the shills it uses on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and even on the broadcast networks that once had journalistic standards, is that Barack Obama is the "most liberal" member of the Senate. They even managed to put together a few pre-selected votes that, when compared to other senators, make him look more liberal-- a lot more liberal. However, a comprehensive look at Obama's voting record shows, unfortunately, the opposite. One of the reasons we were late in endorsing Obama here at DWT is because Hillary, like him a moderate, has a more liberal, more progressive voting record.

But no matter which way you slice and dice Obama's entire record, he comes up towards the bottom of the Democratic pack when it comes to being a liberal. That doesn't stop Republican shills from brainwashing the American public with their Big Lie and it doesn't ever cause fact checkers at CNN or MSNBC (Fox has no fact checkers, for obvious reasons) or at the networks to actually take a look.

But let's do that. Here is the comparative ranking of all 100 senators-- across the board on all votes, not pre-selected votes-- for the '07-'08 session. As you can see, Obama comes in at #40, just ahead of conservative Max Baucus (D-MT) and moderate Jon Tester (D-MT) and not quite as good as moderates Tom Carper (D-DE) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND). Compared to a die-hard neo-fascist like Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Jim DeMint (R-SC) or John Cornyn (R-TX), Obama seems progressive but his voting record paints a clearly and unmistakably mainstream, moderate picture. By way of comparison, Hillary's rank is #29

OK, you may say, did he turn right in the last session because he wanted to trick Americans into thinking he isn't a flaming liberal? Take a look at his lifetime Senate voting record. It's a bit better, but still very far from "the most liberal." He ranks at #24 (Hillary is #18 ). Most telling of all, however, since it cuts out party-line procedural votes, is the Chips Are Down score, which ranks senators based on substantive votes based on partisan divisions. This is the one that separates the liberals from the right-wing loons. I wish Obama were more liberal but this shows him to be a dead center moderate: #43, worse than Max Baucus, although at least somewhat better than McCain ally Joe Lieberman. Liberman's voting record-- which includes supporting every single Bush-Cheney policy item regarding endless war in Iraq-- is 7 points more conservative than Obama. Actual Democratic liberals like Dick Durbin (D-IL; who else represents that state?), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) have more than 20 points of separation between their scores and Obama's, a chasm that even CNN's, CBS', NBC's, ABC's and MSNBC's research department's ought to be able to find... if they bothered to look, instead of allowing the public airwaves to be used in a systematic campaign to deceive the American public.

So while handsomely paid Republican shills on all the networks, not just Fox, are allowed to go unchallenged as they make it conventional wisdom that Obama is the most liberal senator in America-- an honor that would be rightfully claimed at various times by Durbin, Lautenberg or Whitehouse-- a report by Reuters about 3 former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission endorsing Obama this week, went virtually unmentioned by TV news.

The rest...

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I know. It's one of the things I've never gotten the Obama supporters to look at - Hillary comes in a solid, if close to the line, progressive to Obama's rank and file Dem if you look at that "chips are down" score. They keep harping on the AUMF and Kyl-Lieberman votes and pay absolutely no attention to her total record. At least most of them shut up about her voting for Iraqi funding when it's pointed out that Obama did too (except they usually go into a long song and dance about Obama's virtuous motives v Hillary's evil ones). If Hillary were to get into the White House (exceedingly unlikely at this point), progressives would be pleasantly surprised (for a change) - if they actually looked at what she was doing, rather than nit-picking everything to death based on what they assume she's doing (which is unfortunately likely, since it's what they're doing now). On the other hand, if Obama actually gets in, which is likely - but it will be a squeek and not the landslide Obama supporters keep predicting - progressives are going to be disappointed. We'll probably lose a good 10% to some vocally virtuous 3rd party. Sigh.