Obama in '95: Reagan Committed 'dirty Deeds'

A few days ago, Senator Barack Obama made waves by praising the late President Ronald Reagan, but in 1995 the future Illinois senator had a markedly different view of the Republican hero. In his first book, Dreams from My Father, Obama said he got into community organizing in Chicago in 1983 to "pronounce on the need for change. Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds."

But now, Obama invokes Reagan's name in a clearly complimentary way while taking a shot at President Clinton and Sen. Clinton:
"Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and a way that Bill Clinton did not," Obama said. "We want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

The campaign has back tracked the comment by saying the Senator was merely referring to the kind of movement campaign that vaulted Reagan to the White House:

"Sen. Obama was talking about the way President Reagan, for better or for worse, tapped into the mood of the electorate and changed the political landscape," Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor has said. "That doesn't change the fact that Sen. Obama strongly disagreed with a lot of what Reagan did."

If that were the case, then why in 2003, as an Illinois state senator, Obama joined almost all of his colleagues in co-sponsoring legislation that would have marked Feb. 6 as "Ronald Reagan Day" in Illinois, the state in which Reagan was born? For many in America, the Reagan legacy invokes memories of poverty, deficits, and broken schools. Democratic voters should be wary of voting for someone who calls Reagan a hero and a beacon of hope. For most democrats, that person was Bill Clinton in both 1992, and 1996. It is troubling to hear a democratic candidate invoke a republican president who lost millions of jobs, raked up record deficits, and increased poverty, over a democratic president who worked for eight years to clean up the "Reagan Mess". It begs the question whether Obama would really be a Democratic president, or just another president who promises one thing, and delivers something else. This is a real concern voters must have about this young junior senator. The next president will be counted upon to clean up the "Bush Mess", not expand it.