This isn’t very surprising given all politicians like to make it appear that they play a bigger role in events than they actually do. But this is just outrageous and goes way too far:

After weeks of arduous negotiations, on April 6, 2006, a bipartisan group of senators burst out of the “President’s Room,” just off the Senate chamber, with a deal on new immigration policy.

As the half-dozen senators — including John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) — headed to announce their plan, they met Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who made a request common when Capitol Hill news conferences are in the offing: “Hey, guys, can I come along?”

And when Obama went before the microphones, he was generous with his list of senators to congratulate — a list that included himself.

“I want to cite Lindsey Graham, Sam Brownback, Mel Martinez, Ken Salazar, myself, Dick Durbin, Joe Lieberman . . . who’ve actually had to wake up early to try to hammer this stuff out,” he said.

To Senate staff members, who had been arriving for 7 a.m. negotiating sessions for weeks, it was a galling moment. Those morning sessions had attracted just three to four senators a side, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) recalled, each deeply involved in the issue. Obama was not one of them.

But in a presidential contest involving three sitting senators, embellishment of legislative records may be an inevitability, Specter said with a shrug.  (Via The Campaign Spot)

Obama ended up voting against the immigration bill anyway.

Given the candidate’s claim that he can “reach across the aisle” and change politics in America, it is a perfectly legitimate question to ask if he is so excited about bi-partisan agreements, why didn’t he participate in in those meetings involving the few pieces of legislation where Democrats and Republicans tried to get a bi-partisan bill passed?

I guess we’re supposed to trust him to change his tune once we elect him president.

HT: Ed Lasky 

Sphere: Related Content