Empty Suit, Empty Rhetoric, Real Consequences.
When your quest to sound relevant and important leads to insulting our closest neighbor and ally, in my book, it’s cause for real concern.
Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics reports:
It’s never good when a story that you’ve slapped down as false gets up and slaps you back - as the NAFTA story has just done to the Obama campaign. The AP reports of a memo surfacing that appears to support the original version of the story that an Obama advisor told Canadian government officials that Obama’s railing against NAFTA was more or less just campaign rhetoric.
The AP story goes on to say
According to the memo obtained by The Associated Press, Obama’s senior economic adviser told Canadian officials in Chicago that the debate over free trade in the Democratic presidential primary campaign was “political positioning” and that Obama was not really protectionist.
In the words of David Byrne, ‘this ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around.’ Obama (as is the case with many liberals) needs to realize that, given his position as a potential Commander-In-Chief of the United States, his empty-headed, off-the-cuff rhetoric can carry real world consequences. Obama, like most liberals, has a nasty habit of thinking that he lives in a vacuum, and that his rhetoric is shielded from consequence by the mere presence of good intentions (remember his rhetorical foray into Pakistan?). Obama would do well to remember that unlike a high school debate class in which all rhetoric is forgotten at the end of the day, his words, at least until November 4th, will have real, possibly earth-shattering implications.
It is my hope that his future choice of rhetoric will reflect a more thorough understanding of its implications.
26 comments March 3rd, 2008
