The Barack Obama bandwagon seems to roll on - much to the annoyance of the Clinton camp.
To an outsider - that is an non-American, and probably even to Americans themselves - the present primary elections underway in the US are more than puzzling. On one view it looks like grassroots level electioneering, yet it really isn't. At the end of the day it will be the heavyweights, certainly in the Democratic Party, who will decide who its candidate for the presidency will be.
All that aside, who is this Obama? What does he stand for? - other than the oft-repeated platitudes of pronouncing that he will bring "change" to Washington. It is a question Andrew Stephen, who was appointed US Editor of the New Statesman in 2001, having been its Washington correspondent and weekly columnist since 1998, has asked. Stephen is a regular contributor to BBC news programs and to The Sunday Times Magazine. He has also written for a variety of US newspapers including The New York Times Op-Ed pages. He came to the US in 1989 to be Washington Bureau Chief of The Observer and in 1992 was made Foreign Correspondent of the Year by the American Overseas Press Club for his coverage.
"Politically, there is remarkably little difference between the three leading Democrats - Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Obama was not in the Senate in 2002 and did not therefore vote for the resolution that authorised the invasion of Iraq. But he has not been the sainted man of peace his supporters portray, either. In his three years in the Senate he has kept his head safely below the parapet, leaving two congressional colleagues - Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania - to spearhead opposition to the war on Capitol Hill. In 2006 he voted against a Senate resolution calling for the withdrawal of troops and has also voted to continue funding the war.
Most recently, he said he would not hesitate to send US troops into Pakistan without Pakistan's permission to hunt down terrorists, and he insists that the US must not "cede our claim of leadership in world affairs". He wants the military to "stay on the offensive, from Djibouti to Kandahar" and to increase defence expenditure. Like most identikit US mainstream politicians, he talks of "rogue nations" and "hostile dictators", and says the US must maintain "a strong nuclear deterrent" and be ready to "seize" the "American moment". He appeared to support Israel's attack on Lebanon, but then said "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people" - which, in turn, he denied saying."
Read the complete piece here.
To an outsider - that is an non-American, and probably even to Americans themselves - the present primary elections underway in the US are more than puzzling. On one view it looks like grassroots level electioneering, yet it really isn't. At the end of the day it will be the heavyweights, certainly in the Democratic Party, who will decide who its candidate for the presidency will be.
All that aside, who is this Obama? What does he stand for? - other than the oft-repeated platitudes of pronouncing that he will bring "change" to Washington. It is a question Andrew Stephen, who was appointed US Editor of the New Statesman in 2001, having been its Washington correspondent and weekly columnist since 1998, has asked. Stephen is a regular contributor to BBC news programs and to The Sunday Times Magazine. He has also written for a variety of US newspapers including The New York Times Op-Ed pages. He came to the US in 1989 to be Washington Bureau Chief of The Observer and in 1992 was made Foreign Correspondent of the Year by the American Overseas Press Club for his coverage.
"Politically, there is remarkably little difference between the three leading Democrats - Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Obama was not in the Senate in 2002 and did not therefore vote for the resolution that authorised the invasion of Iraq. But he has not been the sainted man of peace his supporters portray, either. In his three years in the Senate he has kept his head safely below the parapet, leaving two congressional colleagues - Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania - to spearhead opposition to the war on Capitol Hill. In 2006 he voted against a Senate resolution calling for the withdrawal of troops and has also voted to continue funding the war.
Most recently, he said he would not hesitate to send US troops into Pakistan without Pakistan's permission to hunt down terrorists, and he insists that the US must not "cede our claim of leadership in world affairs". He wants the military to "stay on the offensive, from Djibouti to Kandahar" and to increase defence expenditure. Like most identikit US mainstream politicians, he talks of "rogue nations" and "hostile dictators", and says the US must maintain "a strong nuclear deterrent" and be ready to "seize" the "American moment". He appeared to support Israel's attack on Lebanon, but then said "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people" - which, in turn, he denied saying."
Read the complete piece here.
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