Barack's Character Problem: A Follow Up

After posting a short article I wrote concerning Sen. Barack Obama and his inconsistency on several issues, I got slammed over at the Daily Kos website for twisting Sen. Obama's words and lying about his positions.  After I read those comments, I realized that indeed I should have given more substantial evidence to back up my claims.  So here is my evidence: quotes from Barack Obama himself, a top surrogate, and reliable, objective sources.

In 2004, Sen. Barack Obama said the following when asked on multiple occasions whether or not he would have voted for war in Iraq: 

"I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports.  What would I have done?  I don't know."

  -New York Times, July 26, 2004

"There's not much of a difference between my position (on Iraq) and George Bush's position at this stage."

  -Chicago Tribune, July 27, 2004

And then when questioned by Tim Russert about why he said the things above, Barack responded:

"(Those comments) were made during the convention when we had a nominee, both for President and Vice President, who had voted for the war.  It was probably the wrong time for me to be making a strong case against my party's nominee."

  -Meet the Press, November 11, 2007

That last quote, in my opinion, perfectly exemplifies the lack of leadership Sen. Obama exhibits.  He himself admitted that he essentially just went with the flow as to not upset the status quo.  I don't care what the circumstances are, a true leader stands up for what he believes in 100% of the time, regardless of what others, even his "elders" of "friends" may think of him.  Of course the case could be made that Barack did not exhibit poor leadership, but in fact truly didn't know whether he would have voted for or against the war.  So either a) Obama isn't a true leader as he claims, or b) Obama was telling the truth and in fact did agree with George Bush.  I'll let you decide which one is a more damning critique.

On Obama's healthcare plan:

"It's pretty much conventional wisdom that, without a mandate, a substantial portion of Americans would remain uninsured...15 million is an estimate...but at least a few well-respected authorities, none of them tied to one candidate, think it makes sense."

  -Jonathan Cohn, The New Republic, December 3, 2007

"(Obama's plan) does not include a mandate for adults, as Clinton's plan does. That likely means not as many people will be insured."

  -Kenneth Thorpe, professor of health policy and management at Emory University

"(When Sen. Clinton says Obama's plan leaves 15 million uninsured), Clinton is accurately quoting studies that estimate how many will be uninsured under Obama's plan."

  -St. Petersburg Times/ politifact.com

"What he may be saying is he supports the idea that everybody ought to have healthcare. He supports universal access."

 -Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), Obama surrogate, December 11, 2007 on Tucker

So basically what you get when you put these quotes, from reliable sources, on healthcare together, is that Sen. Obama likes the idea of everyone having health care, but at the same time won't mandate it, which experts estimate will leave 15 million uninsured.  

There is my evidence that backs up the claims I made in my article a few days ago.  (Click here for that article)  People can say what they want and think what they want, but the proof is all right here.