Prominent Democrat Slams Obama
Bob Kerrey, who served as a US senator and governor of Nebraska, slams Barack Obama on his hypocrisy on campaign finance reform. From The New York Post:
ON the question of public funding of presidential campaigns, we Democrats who strongly support Sen. Barack Obama’s candidacy and who previously supported limits on campaign spending and who haven’t objected to Obama’s opting out of the presidential funding system face an awkward fact: Either we are hypocrites, or we were wrong to support such limitations in the first place. A hypocrite is a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue - who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings. And that, it seems to me, is what we’re doing now.
Former Sen. Wendell Ford once gave me good advice about public issues and votes: “If it takes you more than 10 minutes to explain why you voted a particular way, you probably voted wrong.” It would take me a lot longer than those 10 minutes to explain why I’m not outraged by Obama’s decision to opt out of funding - which has given him a decisive spending advantage over Sen. John McCain. In the short term, I’m sad to report that hypocrite is a more accurate label. In the long term, perhaps this will be the moment that causes me to change my views. It certainly feels better than remaining a hypocrite forever.
