THE OBAMA CONUNDRUM:

IS ACCEPTING SUPER PAC MONEY A HYPOCRISY?

                                                                                                                The Huffington Post, February 9, 2012


What's all this nonsense about liberals on the far left accusing President Obama and his team of hypocrisy because they've decided to level the playing field with the mega-rich Republicans by accepting Super PAC money to rev up for this year's presidential campaign?

Not to mention carping by the media, in particular Anderson Cooper on CNN, who led a recent discussion highlighting
Obama's latest supposed flip-flop, which he termed was no different than those by other candidates like Mitt Romney.
It's the same around the broadcast dial, be it NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC or Fox News.  The media is much more interested in fomenting controversy than providing common sense analysis as they pursue their much more important purpose, which is
to elevate their ratings and hence their paychecks.

Never mind that all this criticism is unadulterated nonsense. Obama hasn't changed his mind on the subject; it's been
impossible to achieve in the current climate, what with the resistance in Congress and the recent Supreme Court decision allowing such monies to flow.

What is he supposed to do? Roll over on principle?  This is not about life or death matters or the welfare of our citizenry
and/or the environment, though it might be if he loses the election.  This is an important issue, but not first and foremost alongside the possibility that the long awaited health care reform might be reversed, equal rights for our citizenry may
be curtailed, our environment may be terminally spoiled and the financial community might go back to playing tricks
with our economy.

There is time to get political improvements in order, but not at the expense of undoing or preventing significant reforms.
It's as if these people are asking Obama not to stand up to the town bully, who goes around kicking him in the balls.
Do they expect him to shake a finger at the bastard and say, "How dare you, sir, but I will not descend to your level?"
While he's being sucker punched is he supposed to fight by the Marquess of Queensberry rules?

Not while there are zillionaires like Sheldon Adelson, who have no problem skirting so-called morality as he time and again revives Newt Gingrich's up and down campaign.  Not when Mitt Romney has access to so much money and there are conservatives whose truth telling belies the name of their PACS or have you forgotten The Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth of 2004, who convinced enough voters that Vietnam war hero John Kerry was in fact not so.

Or those who put gay marriage initiatives on the ballot that same year so that people not disposed to come to the polls
just to support George W. Bush would be inflamed enough to make the trip and, while there, oh, why the hell not, put an
"x" by Bush's name as well.

Some of my Democratic friends have been incredulous how this playing by the rules has cost us so many larger battles.
For God's sake, we had a super majority in the Senate and we barely got health care through, because the Democrats
have a lot more shades of blue as opposed to the GOP, which has lately emerged as nothing but scarlet red.

We have to learn how to fight these guys, and if it means taking off the gloves for a higher purpose, then we must do so
in a political campaign.  We can't bicker among ourselves while the other side has no problem focusing on the primary
objective, which is to win -- even at all costs.

There is too much at stake, and thank God for the Tea Party, the right-wing equivalent of those in our party who are inflexible and make mountains out of a molehill.  Let us pray that their methodology comes to fruition and succeeds in nominating an unyielding so-called moralistic crackpot like Rick Santorum.  A true believer of nonsensical unscientific theories who has no problem condemning the personal life styles of people he disdains, even as those people don't know him nor he they, and
with whom he might never associate.

So, let's thank our stars that the Obama team is willing to get down in the mud -- the proverbial mud, that is, as he's only following the law, handed down by our own Supreme Court.  And let's hope that with this effort the Congress returns to
full Democratic force, and with true Democrats, not the Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman kind.  And maybe, just maybe, one of those right-wing justices will have to be replaced by one whose thinking is of the 21st century and, more importantly, has a consideration for humanity as a whole.

                                                        Follow Michael Russnow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kerrloy

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