Reality check: Redistributing Wealth

Joe the plumber. Instant iconic hero (well, for conservatives, anyway!) He managed to expose the Messiah with a simple question which Obama answered - and accidentally answered honestly, stating that everybody benefitted when the wealth was spread around. The invasion of Joe's private life is another story which I hope to get to.

This raised the obvious question: is Obama a socialist? A Marxist? Joe Biden tried to spin it away as meaning that there would be tax cuts.

Well, Uncle Joe - what about this interview with Obama done in 2001? Let's look at the important statements:

• (Referring to the success of the civil rights movement of the 1960's): But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.
• One of the I think tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributed change and in some ways we still suffer from that.
• (A caller to the show asked:) is it too late for that kind of reparative work economically and is that that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to take place – the court – or would it be legislation at this point?
• I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts... The court’s just not very good at it and politically it’s very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard. So I think that although you can craft theoretical justifications for it legally. Any three of us sitting here could come up with a rational for bringing about economic change through the courts.

So here we have the Democratic presidential candidate lamenting the fact that the Warren court had not gone far enough with regard to redistribution of wealth. According to Obama, we're "still suffering" from being too court-focused to have brought about redistribution (or have it the other way - that we're still suffering from not having brought about redistributed change). Finally, Obama asserts that bringing about this "redistributive change" is not likely to happen through the courts - leaving unsaid the alternative posed by the caller's question, that such change could be legislated. Of course, with at least two Supreme Court appointments available to the next president, and with a congressional supermajority, what's to stand in the way of judicial appointments (at every level) of judges who do believe in redistributive change, an Obama presidency could have its cake and eat it as well - court decisions in addition to legislation, with the enforcement capabilities of the executive branch (ie, the IRS, the FBI, the Justice department, and whatever new agency Obama was referring to establiching a couple months back).

The press reaction to all this? Here's one ostrich, which tries to bury the currency of Obama's beliefs by positing the statement of an Obama spokesman, Bill Burton, that the statements in question were "seven years old". (And while we're passing by, let's look at liberal bias: Burton :said", but the so-called news article alleges that "Both Boehner and John McCain have been trying to pin the 'socialist' label on Obama ".

Seven years? Is that really so long? I remember 9/11 like it was yesterday.

Grow up. Vote against Obama by voting for McCain.