Barack Obama Not Into Big Entourage Thing

Barack Obama was on ‘This Week with George Stephanopoulos’ today, and talked about his ideas on the Iraq war, campaigning, and secret service protection. Obama said he believes there should be benchmarks in the Iraq war, but no timetables for withdrawal of troops. He also doesn’t believe we should just give the President a “blank check” on the Iraq war saying, “There’s got to be something that signals the president is changing course, and that there are consequences to the Iraqi government failing to meet some of the benchmarks that we’re talking about.” Obama won’t say when troops will leave Iraq, even under his Presidency, and he even leaves the door open for them to return to clean up the mess left behind. “I think we have some moral and humanitarian responsibilities to the Iraqi people,” said Obama. “And that has to be factored in. I can’t anticipate what Iraq will look like a year from now, because so much depends on how we carry out this phased redeployment and how effective we are when it comes to diplomacy.” Obama’s campaign team have adopted a low key approach to campaigning as their style. “What I don’t do when I’m campaigning is to try to press a lot of hot buttons and use a lot of cheap applause buttons, because I want people to get a sense of how I think about this process,” said Obama. “I think that one of the problems with political speeches is that we all know what folks want to hear. We know who the conventional, stereotypical enemies are on any given issue, and we have a tendency, I think, to play up to that. And I actually think that we’re in this moment in history right now where honesty, admitting complexity is a good thing.” Obama told Stephanopoulos he really didn’t want the Secret Service protection at first saying, “I’m not an entourage guy.” The Secret Service protection was given to him because of threats that many said were racially motivated, but Obama said race won’t be a factor in his race for 08. “What I’m confident about, though, as I travel around the country, is that people are decent at their core in America,” said Obama. “If I don’t win, it’s not going to be because of my race. It’s going to be because I didn’t project a vision of leadership that gave people confidence. It’s going to be because of something I didn’t do as opposed to because I’m African-American.” It is refreshing to hear a candidate talk like this, but can he survive against Hillary with this Mr. Nice Guy attitude? Honesty, and admitting complexity would be a big change from Bush’s lies, and simplicity of good v evil.
Alan Cosgrove