Truth

One of the worst things about attempting to have a rational discussion with an Obama zealot is the basic stupidity of attempting it in the first place. (For an example of my stupidity see this.) Unfortunately, I'm a committed pragmatist so I try to believe that reality can knock people back into the light...so to speak.

Well, in that vein, this exchange should be enough to get people who claim to be moderate to rethink the myth that Obama has "reached across the aisle in a spirit of non-partisanship."

Fox News' Chris Wallace: Now, David, McCain and Palin do have records of going up against their own parties. When has Barack Obama ever gone up against the Democratic Party in the U.S. Senate?

Obama Senior Strategist David Axelrod: ... One of the first things that Senator Obama did when he came to the U.S. Senate was push for the most far-reaching ethics reforms that we've seen since Watergate. That didn't please people on either side of the aisle, and he has done that consistently in his career. He's reached across party lines to find consensus and he's taken on his own party on issues like, like ethics reform.

You know, what was interesting about these attacks about bipartisanship and so on is that people like Dick Lugar, the very respected Republican senator from Indiana, spoke out and said, These are just partisan attacks. I've worked with Barack Obama.' They worked together on arms control. Senator Coburn in Oklahoma worked together with him on budget issues, like putting the budget on Google so we can see how our money is being spent, putting caps on the contracts around Katrina rebuilding. Senator Obama has a strong record of working across party lines to produce progress for people.

Wallace: But David, because you guys always talk about ethics legislation and the nuclear non-proliferation deal with Dick Lugar, I went back and looked -- both of those measures passed by unanimous consent. They were so accepted by the Senate that there was not even a vote. In fact, ethics legislation was one of the campaign promises. These were not -- if I may, if I may. These were not areas where Barack Obama went up against the leadership of his own party nearly in the way that John McCain did on campaign finance reform, on limiting interrogation of terror detainees, on immigration reform. He did not go up against his own party on either of those issues.

All I can recommend is if you want to back Obama because you like his toe-the-line liberalism than own up to it. That at least has the benefit of being honest.

Unfortunately, Obama's entire campaign has largely been an effort of smoke and mirrors.