This is one of my favorite slams against Senator Obama. “He speaks in generalities! He never gives specifics! Waaa!”

It’s my favorite because it so clearly shows how little attention the person claiming it is making. In fact, Steve Kroft brought it up in this 60 minutes interview:

“You talk about big ideas and often with a lack of specificity. And it’s been one of the complaints about your campaign,” Kroft remarked.

“Remember, early on in the campaign, the complaint about me was that I was too professorial. That I would go through these town hall meetings and, you know, go into great detail about this and that and the other. And you know, wondering what ever happened to that inspiring guy who spoke at the Democratic…convention. Yeah. And now that I’m inspiring people and saying, ‘Hey, you know, where is the specifics?’ And so, you know, if there are issues that you want to cover right now, I’m happy to,” Obama said. “So why don’t we work those through?”

You can, in fact, have it both ways. You can enjoy his oratory in one speech and then listen to a different one full of policy. You just have to do your civic duty and pay attention, America.

This flyer went around in New Hampshire in the days leading up to the primary there. It seems like it refuses to die. It continues to perpetuate the lie that Obama is pro-Abortion, because of his “present” votes. We’ve debunked that once, but if you don’t want to believe us, how about Newsweek or The Wall Street Journal.

The trouble is that in politics, “the facts” alone don’t always make things clearer. Take Obama’s abortion votes. It is true he voted present several times between 1997 and 2001. But it was part of a strategy designed by Planned Parenthood. Republicans in the Illinois Senate had repeatedly tried to pass bills restricting abortion. This put Democrats in a difficult position. They wanted to vote against the bills, but worried they would be smeared by Republican opponents for opposing legislation with names like “The Born Alive Infant Protection Act.” So Obama and a group of Democrats and moderate Republicans cut a deal with Planned Parenthood. The politicians would vote present as a bloc. The bills wouldn’t get enough votes, and the pols would have political cover. Everybody would win.

Luckily, the forces of Truth and Justice and fluffy bunnies are starting to win, as a backlash comes against this flyer. Check out the video below to see how this little dirty campaign trick turned the Former President of Chicago NOW against the Clinton campaign.

The Los Angeles Times has uncovered the stunning story of how Obama accidentally voted wrong 6 times while in the Illinois Senate.

“I was not aware that I had voted no,” he said that day in June 2002, asking that the record be changed to reflect that he “intended to vote yes.”

That was not the only misfire for the former civil rights attorney first elected to the state Senate in 1996. During his eight years in state office, Obama cast more than 4,000 votes. Of those, according to transcripts of the proceedings in Springfield, he hit the wrong button at least six times.

Oh no! Six times out of 4,000 votes! How could this be rectified?

The rules allow state lawmakers to clear up a mishap if they suffered from a momentary case of stumbly fingers or a lapse in attention. Correcting the record is common practice in the Illinois Legislature, where lawmakers routinely cast numerous votes in a hurry.

Oh. Well, clearly he was hiding this record. It’s not like the LA Times could have just, I don’t know, opened up a copy of The Audacity of Hope and found this out.

The Audacity of Hope, page 132-33

Perhaps my greatest bit of good fortune during my own Senate campaign was that no candidate ran a negative TV ad about me. This had to do entirely with the odd circumstances of my Senate race, and not an absence of material with which to work. After all, I had been in the state legislature for seven years when I ran, had been in the minority for six of those years and had cast thousands of sometimes difficult votes. As is standard practice these days, the National Republican Senatorial Committee had prepared a fat binder of opposition research on me before I was even nominated, and my own research team spent many hours combing through my record in an effort to anticipate what negative ads the Republicans might have up their sleeves.

They didn’t find a lot, but they found enough to do the trick– a dozen or so votes that, if described without context, could be made to sound pretty scary. When my media consultant, David Axelrod, tested them in a poll, my approval rating immediately dropped ten points. There was the criminal law bill that purported to crack down on drug dealing in schools but had been so poorly drafted that I concluded it was both ineffective and unconstitutional– “Obama voted to weaken penalties on gang-bangers who deal drugs in schools,” is how the poll described it. There was a bill sponsored by antiabortion activists that on its face sounded reasonable enough- it mandated lifesaving measures for premature babies (the bill didn’t mention that such measures were already the law)– but also extended “personhood” to previable fetuses, thereby effectively overturning Roe vs. Wade; in the poll, I was said to have “Voted to deny lifesaving treatment to babies born alive.” Running down the list, I came across a claim that while in the state legislature I had voted against a bill to “protect our children from sex offenders.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, snatching the sheet from David’s hands. “I accidentally pressed the wrong button on that bill. I meant to vote aye, and had it immediately corrected in the official record.”

David smiled. “Somehow, I don’t think that portion of the official record will make it into a Republican ad.” He gently retrieved the poll from my hands. “Anyway, cheer up,” he added, clapping me on the back. “I’m sure this will help you with the sex offender vote.”

….Oh.

Goon Oracle comes in with the coup d’grace, pointing us to the tale of Representative Tim Johnson, a Republican from the Champaign-Urbana area who rigged a paper clip so that it held the ”Yes” voting button on his desk in the down position. This way he could vote and still go play golf.

A few weeks ago, the Clinton campaign started going after Barack Obama on a series of “present” votes he cast while serving the state Senate. Clinton herself even emphasized the issue in speech in Iowa:

“Now, there’s been a lot of talk about yes or no answers to complex questions. But most people don’t know that for legislators who don’t want to take a stand, there’s a third way to vote. Not yes, not no, but ‘present’ – which is kind of like voting ‘maybe.’ Well, in the Illinois State Senate, on issue after issue, my opponent voted ‘present,’ instead of yes or no. […] A president can’t vote ‘present.’ A president can’t pick and choose which challenges he or she will face.”

She’s right, or course: A president can’t vote. The President has the choice of signing or rejecting a bill others have voted on, but he can not vote on it himself. Sometimes The President may not like a part of a bill, but think the majority of the bill is good, and sign it. Other times, The President may like part of a bill hidden inside a much worse bill, and veto it. The President can also choose to do nothing, and the bill becomes a law by default.

The President can not, however, write, craft, or vote upon a bill.

Now, Clinton did say this weeks ago, and then drop it, but it’s become a media meme. Why? Because Jon Stewart is on strike and so the media have no one to point out to them how silly the statement was in the first place. Also, because news is slow around the Holidays. The New York Times has a piece up about it. It comes down to this — voting ‘present’ is not uncommon in the Illinois legislature; it’s used to in Illinois to express disapproval of a measure, to give cover to other seats in weaker positions, or because the measure is downright stupid.  He voted “present” 3% of the time during his time as a state Senator, and he’s followed this use of it in the US Senate as well.  For instance, Obama voted present on a Senate measure to condemn an ad Moveon.org ran in the New York Times against Gen. David Petraeus. It was a stupid Gotcha! measure and he refused to play:

“This amendment was a stunt designed only to score cheap political points while what we should be doing is focusing on the deadly serious challenge we face in Iraq…. By not casting a vote, I registered my protest against this empty politics. I registered my views on the ad itself the day it appeared.”

Two other members of the Senate abstained from voting: Sen. Joe Biden and Sen. Maria Cantwell.

There’s a new distortion floating around, so it must be a day ending in “day.” Obama’s being accused of attacking Clinton about her records while not releasing his own.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Barack Obama, who’s been scolding Hillary Rodham Clinton for not hastening the release of records from her time as first lady, says he can’t step up and produce his own records from his days in the Illinois state Senate. He says he hasn’t got any.

“I don’t have - I don’t maintain - a file of eight years of work in the state Senate because I didn’t have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records,” he said at a recent campaign stop in Iowa. He said he wasn’t sure where any cache of records might have gone, adding, “It could have been thrown out. I haven’t been in the state Senate now for quite some time.”

Obama’s statement that he has no papers from his time in the Illinois statehouse - he left in 2004 - stands in stark contrast to the massive Clinton file stored at the National Archives: an estimated 78 million pages of documents, plus 20 million e-mail messages, packed into 36,000 boxes. While any file from Obama’s time in the state Senate would be far smaller, the idea that no papers exist at all is questioned by one historian.

Wait wait wait little apples and oranges, stop right there. Obama himself didn’t keep any papers, personally. Neither, in fact, did Clinton. His papers from his time in the State Senate are with the State of Illinois. Her papers are with the National Archives. No one has insinuated Hillary Clinton cough up personal papers, just the papers that are required by law to be kept by the National Archives for future release to the public.

This became an argument because the Clinton’s specifically asked the Archives to set aside all correspondence between Bill and Hillary for review prior to release.  Obama has authorized the release of his State Senate papers, and he responded to this stupid “controversy” on Meet the Press:

“In the state Senate, every single piece of information, every document related to state government was kept by the state of Illinois and has been disclosed and is available and has been gone through with a fine-toothed comb by news outlets in Illinois.

“The stuff that I did not keep has to do with, for example, my schedule. I didn’t have a schedule. I was a state senator. I wasn’t intending to have the Barack Obama State Senate Library. I didn’t have 50 or 500 people to, to help me archive these issues.”

Hillary Clinton’s entire campaign hinges on the idea that she is qualified to be President because she was deeply involved in policy as First Lady, but refuses to release her papers showing how involved she was with policy while First Lady. And let’s not forget that those papers are in the NATIONAL ARCHIVES.

All we’ve learned here is that Obama is not a packrat and Hillary is really bad at the Ad Hominem Tu Quoque fallacy.

While we’re at it, I’m going to start a meme, right here, right now, demanding to see Biden’s 10th grade math tests and for Dodd to fess up and tell us, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, if Carrie Fisher was any good in bed.

Obama gave an interview to The New York Times on October 27 outlining how he would more forcefully point out the differences between himself and Senator Clinton. The Clinton camp pulled out the same tired soundbite the always do whenever Obama stands up to explain how he’s different:

Asked about Mr. Obama’s remarks, Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman, Howard Wolfson, said: “Senator Obama once promised Americans a politics of hope. But now that his campaign has stalled he is abandoning that strategy and is engaging in the same old-style personal attacks that he once rejected. We are confident that voters will reject this strategy, especially from a candidate who told us he would do better.”

They say this exact same line so frequently I think they must have it on a broken record somewhere. This time, Obama responded:

“I’ve been amused by seeing some of the commentary out of the Clinton camp, where every time we point out a difference between me and her, they say, ‘What happened to the politics of hope?’ which is just silly,” he said, laughing.

Asked why it was silly, he responded: “The notion that somehow changing the tone means simply that we let them say whatever they want to say or that there are no disagreements and that we’re all holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ is obviously not what I had in mind and not how I function. And anybody who thinks I have, hasn’t been paying attention.”

Kumbaya, Senator. Goon Feather gets to the nitty-gritty:

He needs to hammer the fact that pointing out differences isn’t the same as negative campaigning again and again.

President Ass-hat, despite saying he wasn’t gonna comment, just couldn’t help himself and spoke up about how he think’s Hillary is going to win. Which means he does, in fact, watch the news. But this may be the dumbest thing the Internet has ever recorded.

Meanwhile, a senior White House official tells Sammon that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton’s chief competitor for the nomination, is “capable” of winning the White House, but has shown an “intellectual laziness.”

Really? Calling a black man lazy. Will the GOP ever get out of the 1950’s? Not to mention this is coming from the White House of President Monkey-For-A-Head, who averaged C’s, never worked a day in his life, didn’t know that there were different kinds of Muslim’s, and traded away Sammy Sosa. (See, I can be petty, too.)

And then there’s this:

The RNC just shot off an email building on the slur. With the headline “Razzle Dazzle”, the email continues the theme that Obama is just another black fancy-pants with a slick smile and nice turn of phrase but either without the candle-power or stick-to-it-iveness to actually get things done.

“Chicago Star Obama Continues His All Show, No Substance Campaign With Event On Broadway,” the email begins.

What to expect next out of the RNC? Obama would be a better singer and tap dancer than president?

Yes’m, I sure do like me some fried chicken and watermelon!

Assholes.

One of things many people like about Obama is his ability to form a consensus with people from the other side of the aisle to pass actual important legislation. Which is why this article was nice.

“There are some very capable Republicans who I have a great deal of respect for,” Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press. “The opportunities are there to create a more effective relationship between parties.”

Among the Republicans he would seek help from are Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana, John Warner of Virginia and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Obama said.

Never a group to pass up the opportunity to eat their own, this threw several people on the left in to hissy fits. Why? Because Tom Coburn is an asshole. This is an indisputable fact. However, he’s also one of the sole and only voices for restraint on the Republican side of the Senate. And he pisses off his Republican colleagues on a regular basis. Which means he is not a party-line toeing ideologue.

Don’t believe me?

In April, for example, he tackled nineteen highly questionable expenses that his colleagues had slipped into the budget at the last minute– money that no branch of government had requested, which would directly benefit Senate campaign supporters. In September, he teamed up with Barack Obama to expose federal waste by putting the national budget on a public Web site– a prospect so alarming to some senators that two of them tried to kill it anonymously. And in December, as his Republican colleagues began cleaning out their offices to make room for the new Democratic leadership, Coburn fired a parting shot: Using legislative procedures, he blocked the GOP from finishing its annual business and pushed many of the most important budgetary decisions for incoming Democrats to make in the New Year.

The entire GQ article is a fascinating read, and well worth it. And here is the bill he and Obama drafted and managed to eventually pass unanimously. It’s one of the best bills to come out of the Senate in the last few years, and it’s important.

Oh Hell, Goon Oracle is so awesome here, I’m just going to repost what she said.

[This] may help some supporters when asked the question ‘how do we know he can truly reach across the aisle and bring the two parties together/work with Republicans?’

Two in-depth stories, one from the Washington Post and one from the New York Times, should be required reading for those who need a quick introduction to what the man accomplished across the aisle in Illinois. The New York Times also has a very comprehensive Obama page that is nice to bookmark, from which the graphic below came, and which also has links to the aforementioned articles in both the Times and the Post. It is updated periodically.

Here’s a handy little graphic from the New York Times on his legislative career in Illinois.

(editors note: Click for large, readable version)

Some highlights from his US Senate bipartisan record:

Partnering with Orrin Hatch to develop legislation to promote plug-in vehicles

Obama leads bipartisan effort to improve fuel economy

Senate Passes Obama, McCaskill Legislation to Provide Safety Net for Families of Wounded Service Members with 34 bipartisan cosponsors

He introduced legislation last year with Tom freaking Coburn (R - OK) to make it easier to find the identities of recipients of federal funding and financial assistance. It was signed into law.

Teamed with U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., to sponsor a bill last year expanding efforts to locate and destroy weapons of mass destruction. It was signed into law Jan 2007.

Try typing ‘bipartisan legislation sponsored Obama Senate’ into Google for even more hits.

Goons: Doing the leg work so you don’t have to.

Some more refutations of the “Obama lacks experience” meme that despite all contradictory evidence refuses to die.

Goon miss_chaos brings us this:

Obama has spent more time in elected public office than either Edwards or Hillary, and has made more productive use of his short time in the Senate than most career politicians.

editors note: Obama sponsored 152 bills and resolutions brought before the 109th Congress in 2005 and 2006, and cosponsored another 427.

Goon drscience says:

I’ve been wondering why the hell Obama gets pinned as the ‘inexperienced’ candidate compared to other politicians.

Republicans:
Rudy “my city was attacked by terrorists and I screwed up the response” Giuliani?
Mitt “former governor of Mass and admittedly competent CEO” Romney?
Fred “former senator and TV actor” Thompson?
How about the guy who used to be a baptist minister?

Democrats:
Clinton “I spent a lot of time physically inside the white house” Clinton? Why aren’t the Republicans nominating Laura Bush?
John “I ran for VP last term and lost” Edwards?

Now, Biden and Richardson have experience but the men both own 50% shares in a fucking gaffe factory.

I don’t exactly get why the community organizer/constitutional law professor/state senator/U.S. senator is painted as such a helpless child.

but whatever. If vast experience is what it took for Cheney and Rumsfeld to engineer the Iraq War, and Clinton and Edwards to vote for it, than whatever the barometer for experience is I’m relieved Obama doesn’t have any.

Goon Fix mentions:

My encounters on this question usually go along these lines:

“He seems inexperienced in Congress.”

“Do you trust congress?”

“Not really. They’re corrupt.”

“He’s inexperienced at that.”

Why people don’t view inexperience and a wish to change a system you already don’t like and don’t trust as a good thing is beyond me.

All of these are valid and awesome and ought to be spread around.