Monday, April 14, 2008

Subject: Analysis of Obama's statement compared to Clinton's and Webb's   [Rich Lowry]

E-mail: 

Hi Mr. Lowry, It seems to me that Jim Webb, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama had the same exact intention when they said their respective comments.  The only difference, to me, is that Webb and Clinton said theirs in an Op-Ed, and a book, respectively.  Thus, they had time to fine-tune it to be politically safe, whereas Obama said his off the cuff... thus, not politically safe, but nonetheless, with the same intent. 

Again, here’s Bill Clinton in his book.

"If [Republicans] could cut funding for Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment, middle-class Americans would see fewer benefits from their tax dollars, feel more resentful paying taxes, and become even more receptive to their appeals for tax cuts and their strategy of waging campaigns on divisive social and cultural issues like abortion, gay rights, and guns."

And here’s Jim Webb in the WSJ Op-Ed.

The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet.

04/14 08:48 AMShare