Op/Ed: Why I Can't Vote for Obama Now (and other debate-night revelations). [View All]

[Mugsy]

From "Mugsy's Rap Sheet"

Why I Can’t Vote for Obama now
(and other debate-night revelations).

Last Thursday was the first “official” debate among the eight Democrats vying for the Presidency in ‘08 (if you missed it, you can catch most of the 90 minute broadcast here on the MSNBC website). Everyone appears to be in agreement that no one particular candidate stood out from the rest or broke out of the pack. Many praised the top two front-runners, Hillary and Obama, for “looking & sounding presidential”, but as far as praise goes, that’s about it.

I didn’t see it that way.

In what was probably the only contentious moment in what might otherwise be described as a “Love Fest” between candidates heaping praise on each other, bottom-tier candidate Dennis Kucinich took umbrage to Senator Obama’s vow that “all options would be on the table” when it comes to dealing with Iran (watch the exchange here). As former Senator Mike Gravel (pronounced “gra-VELL”) had pointed out earlier in the debate: “that’s code for “using nukes”. Kucinich apparently agreed. They continued to discuss Iran as a potential nuclear threat. Senator Obama then said something that left me cold:

“They are in the process of developing… and I don’t think that is disputed by any expert.”

Actually, that “fact” is indeed very much in dispute. I even discussed growing evidence of more "cooked intelligence" in this earlier column. And hearing Senator Obama state it in such a “matter of fact” way was too reminiscent of the entire Bush White House (most notably Dick Cheney) in the lead up to the war with Iraq. There was “no doubt” they told us that Saddam had stockpiles of chemical & biological weapons; There was “no doubt” that he was “reconstituting his nuclear weapons program”; and there was “full agreement” in the international community on these “facts”.

I’m sorry, but if the Bush Administration has taught us ANYTHING, it is to DOUBT anything they tell us about foreign threats.

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