There's a...history of lying and cheating...
see I can do it too.
True that! Sort of like Barack Obama's telling about how his most gut-wrenching decision was opposing the Iraq War and risking all sorts of political reprisals. Of course, he's talking about when he was an unknown state senator from a liberal district in liberal Illinois back in 2002 when the general talk wasn't about how the U.S. was going to walk of Iraq, but how we had to be careful of Saddam Hussein's poison gas. Political risk my ass!
This was two months before he declared his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. However, later in 2004, two days before his speech before the Democratic convention Obama was on NBC's "Meet the Press."
July 25, 2004 interview on "Meet the Press," two days before his keynote address to the Democratic convention made him a national figure. During that interview, Obama had this colloquy with Tim Russert:
MR. RUSSERT: . . . The nominee of your party, John Kerry, the nominee for vice president, John Edwards, all said [Saddam] was an imminent threat. They voted to authorize George Bush to go to war. How could they have been so wrong and you so right as a state legislator in Illinois and they're on the Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees in Washington?
STATE REP. OBAMA: Well, I think they have access to information that I did not have. And what is absolutely clear is that John Kerry said, "If we go into war, let's make sure that we do it right. Let's make sure that our troops are supported. Let's make sure that we have the kind of coalition that's necessary to succeed." And the execution of what was a difficult choice to make was something that all of us have to be concerned about. And moving forward, the only way that we're going to be able to succeed is if, I think, we have an administration led by John Kerry that's going to allow us to consolidate the relationships with our allies that bring about investment in Iraq.
Tim Russert: But if you had been a senator at that time, you would have voted not to authorize President Bush to go to war?
Obama: I would have voted not to authorize the president given the facts as I saw them at that time.
Russert: So you disagree with John Kerry and John Edwards?
Obama: At that time, but, as I said, I wasn't there and what is absolutely clear as we move forward is that if we don't have a change in tone and a change in administration, I think we're going to have trouble making sure that our troops are secure and that we succeed in Iraq.
Russert: We can't withdraw the troops immediately?
Obama: I don't think so.
According to Obama this was the time when being FOR the war was the "difficult choice to make" and being against the war as he had been was simply a case of not having sufficient information as the heroes in the party leadership had. So at least when it was politically expedient to do so Barack Obama could toss gut-wrenching decisions out the window and suck up to the party leadership when required to do so.