Obama Lies in First National Ad

From the National Review: "Padding Obama [Yuval Levin]

"Barack Obama released his first general election ad on Friday, which seems aimed above all to answer some early concerns about his biography and experience. It’s a well made ad, but it also offers an example of the kind of brazen padding of the resume that Obama will inevitably need to engage in, and which will carry serious risks for him.

About 46 seconds into the ad, we are told that Obama “passed laws” that “extended healthcare for wounded troops who’d been neglected,” and in the usual manner of these political commercials we are given a little citation at the bottom. The citation reads “Public Law 110-181 1/28/08”. That law is the only federal legislation cited in the ad — the other two items mentioned were from the Illinois legislature and referred to other issues raised in the ad.

Public Law 110-181 was the 2008 defense authorization bill. It passed the Senate by 91 to 3 in January, with six Senators not voting. Among those six absentees was Barack Obama. So he cites a bill he didn’t even vote for. Did he contribute to it in some way that might be reasonably referred to as extending healthcare for wounded troops who’d been neglected? It certainly doesn’t seem that way, as even Obama supporters at the Daily Kos discovered when they tried to answer some of the bloggers who pointed to Obama’s citation of the bill. They found that Obama had tried to insert an amendment that had to do with screenings for service members returning from deployments, and one that would ease the discharge of service members found to have personality disorders, but neither amendment passed. Another part of the bill, calling for inspector general reports about hospital facilities, had come from a different bill Obama had sponsored.

Even under the most generous reading imaginable could any of that count as passing legislation that extended health care for wounded troops? The Chicago Tribune noted the problem on its blog last week but defended Obama by pointing out that John McCain didn’t vote for the bill either. That would be an interesting piece of information if John McCain had cited this bill as among his chief legislative accomplishments.

The Obama team’s desire to pad the resume is understandable — it’s awfully slim after all. But this kind of dishonesty will catch up with them…or at least it should."

More Obama Amateur Hour: Obama Advisor Tells BBC that Obama Iraq Withdrawal Plan Isn't Certain

Transcript:

STEPHEN SACKUR: Let me stop you just for a moment. You said that he’ll revisit it when he goes to the White House. So what the American public thinks is a commitment to get combat forces out within sixteen months, isn’t a commitment isn’t it?
POWER: You can’t make a commitment in whatever month we’re in now, in March of 2008 about what circumstances are gonna be like in Jan. 2009. We can’t even tell what Bush is up to in terms of troop pauses and so forth. He will of course not rely upon some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or as a US senator.
He will rely upon a plan, an operational plan that he pulls together, in consultation with people who are on the ground, to whom he doesn’t have daily access now as a result of not being the president.

So to think, I mean it would be the height of ideology, you know, to sort of say, well I said it therefore I’m going to impose it on whatever reality entreats me –

SACKUR: Ok, so the 16 months is negotiable?

POWER: It’s the best case scenario

It’s the best case scenario

POWER: It is –

SACKUR: And of course in Iraq we’ve never seen best case scenario

POWER: We have never seen best case scenario

SACKUR: So we needn’t necessarily take it seriously at all.

POWER: What we can take seriously is that he will try to get US forces out as quickly and as responsibly as possible. And that’s the best case, estimate of what it would take.

Sen. Obama has repeatedly criticized Hillary for not having a "firm" and "clear" withdrawal deadline:
Sen. Obama: 'Why we would try [Hillary’s] approach as opposed to simply setting a timetable for withdrawal strikes me as a convoluted approach to the problem.' "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to introduce an amendment repealing the congressional authorization for the war. It would require the president to seek new authority from Congress if he wanted to continue operations past Oct. 11, 2007, five years after initial authorization was given. ‘If you simply repeal the language, then presumably you'd have to reauthorize something. You've got 150,000 troops over there and support personnel,’ Obama told The Associated Press in an interview after a campaign stop in Las Vegas. ‘Why we would try that approach as opposed to simply setting a timetable for withdrawal strikes me as a convoluted approach to the problem,’ he said." [AP, 7/13/07]
Sen. Obama: Sen. Clinton 'hasn't given a firm timetable in terms of executing the withdrawal, and I think that's a problem.' "And in--there is a difference, though, between myself and Senator Clinton on a couple of these issues. Number one, she hasn't given a firm timetable in terms of executing the withdrawal, and I think that's a problem. I think we have to provide certainty to the Iraqi leadership, so that they know that we are serious about changing course." [NBC Meet the Press, 11/11/07]
Sen. Obama: 'Senator Clinton continues to not provide a clear timetable for how she would pull our troops out' of Iraq. "Where Senator Clinton continues to not provide a clear timetable for how she would pull our troops out, so those are all differences we will continue to talk about." [Obama Press Conference Transcript, 11/9/07]
Sen. Obama: ‘I do think it’s important for us to set a date.’ When asked if he could make a commitment for a withdrawal date, Obama said, "I do think it is important for us to set a date. And the reason I think it is important is because if we are going to send a signal to the Iraqis that we are serious, and prompt the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurds to actually come together and negotiate, they have to have clarity about how serious we are. It can't be muddy, it can't be fuzzy. They've got to know that we are serious about this process." [CNN debate, 1/31/08]