Legal Commentary

Recordings and Sen. Obama's "politics of purpose"

By Beldar

Some folks are faulting the blogger who recorded, then reported, Sen. Barack Obama's comments at a San Francisco fund-raiser about "bitter" small-town voters who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren?t like them." They argue that intimate fund-raisers like this one "are always off the record," such that  Sen. Obama was fully justified in being less careful with his language than he would have been had he known it was going to be recorded for public scrutiny.

They're obviously unfamiliar with even the very thin record of legislative accomplishments that Sen. Obama can claim in either the Illinois or U.S. Senates. From his campaign website:

Amid the partisanship and bickering of today's public debate, [Obama] still believes in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose ? a politics that puts solving the challenges of everyday Americans ahead of partisan calculation and political gain.

In the Illinois State Senate, ... after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Senator Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

So: If a recording can be used to undercut a capital murder prosecution, that's good. If a recording can be used to expose a side of a Democratic presidential candidate that he'd rather conceal, that's bad.

Such is Sen. Obama's "politics of purpose" — as practiced, if not as preached.

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on April 15, 2008 (boomark / email).