First of all kudos to Ben Smith of Politico for uncovering this document and then reporting on it.
A document has emerged suggesting that Obama had taken more public, liberal stands in the past than had been revealed in the digging of reporters and opposition researchers over two years of campaigning, the latest of several pointing to a rightward shift as he moved into national politics.
In a 1996 questionnaire filled out for a Chicago gay and lesbian newspaper, then called Outlines, Obama came out clearly in favor of same-sex marriage, which he has opposed on the public record throughout his short career in national politics.
“I favor legalizing same-sex marriages,and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages,” Obama wrote in the typed, signed, statement.
There was no use of “civil unions,” and “no compromise whatsoever,” the Windy City Times story today notes.
On another questionnaire the same year, Obama said he would support a resolution in support of same-sex marriage.
The editor of the Windy City Times, a successor of Outlines, Tracy Baim, said she hadn’t deliberately held onto the news until after Obama’s election. Baim, who had been the editor of Outlines at the time, said that just before the election, she ran across the old Outline story saying Obama backed same-sex marriage, but only dug his forgotten questionaire out of an old box this week, having assumed that she’d lost it.
Obama now says he opposes same-sex marriage, though he backs giving gays and lesbians a parallel package of marriage-like rights, and opposes a federal ban on same-sex marriage.
A new Gallup poll out today finds that Senator Hillary Clinton’s favorable rating now at 65%, its highest level in more than ten years.
Clinton had not had a favorable rating above 60% since 1999, after having been consistently above that level during the Monica Lewinsky scandal that led to the impeachment but ultimate acquittal of husband Bill Clinton. That included Hillary Clinton’s all-time high 67% favorable rating immediately after the House of Representatives voted to impeach the president in December 1998.
Since late 1999, Hillary Clinton’s favorable ratings have been around 50%, ranging from a low of 44% in March 2001 to a high of 58% in February 2007.
The last measure in 2008, taken just before the Democratic National Convention last August and following months of a hotly contested Democratic nomination campaign with Barack Obama, was 54%. Since that time, her image has improved among most key demographic and political subgroups, but much more among women than men.
Interestingly, she has made nearly equal gains among Republicans (+12 points), independents (+9), and Democrats (+13), though Democrats continue to view her much more positively than Republicans.
Today at his Senate confirmation hearings, President-elect Obama’s choice to run the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Peter Orszag warned “the Senate Budget Committee to expect budget deficits equaling 5 percent of the size of the economy for the next five or ten years.” What this translates as is that this means deficits of $750 billion or so over the next couple of years and steadily exceeding $1 trillion by 2020.
Current projections see a deficit for the current budget year exceeding $1 trillion — and that’s before the enactment of Obama’s estimated $800 billion fiscal stimulus package, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Congressional Budget Office predicts a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009, about 8% of gross domestic product. Add the Obama numbers in and fiscal 2009 looks like a two trillion dollar deficit year. This, of course, will require financing. And for that there is really only one source upon which we are increasingly reliant, overseas investors and by overseas I mean Chinese, Japanese and Middle Eastern capital sources. Do you get the feeling that we are over a barrel?
More on Peter Orszag’s confirmation hearing comments from MSNBC and from the New York Times.
Since beginning its offensive in the Gaza Strip Israel has repeatedly declared it will maintain attacks to smash what it calls the Hamas terrorist machine. However, as Israel’s bombardment continues, the appeal of Hamas in the Arab world appears to be growing. Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra reports on how the war has left Hamas gaining popular support.
Some critics say the Israeli media coverage reflects only one side of the war on Gaza.
As Israeli journalists are prevented from reporting from within Gaza, the Israeli public receives a limited and, some would say, sterile coverage of their country’s latest offensive.
