Obamacons: Cutting Off Their Noses to Spite Their Faces

"When he leaves the room, everybody thinks he just agreed with them. We don't know if you're really buying a pig in a poke here. It could be the second coming of the Clinton administration. If people have any confidence in that, I think a whole lot of conservatives would votefor him."

-- Michael Greve, director of the Federalism Project at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Why some conservatives are backing Obama
Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Monday, July 7, 2008

(07-07) 04:00 PDT Washington -- The "Obamacans" that Sen. Barack Obama used to joke about - Republican apostates who whispered their support for his candidacy - have morphed into a new phenomenon, or syndrome, as detractors like to call it: the Obamacons.

These are conservatives who have publicly endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee, dissidents from the brain trust of think tanks, ex-officials and policy magazines that have fueled the Republican Party since the 1960s. Scratch the surface of this elite, and one finds a profound dismay that is far more damaging to the GOP than the usual 10 percent of registered Republicans expected to switch sides during a presidential election.

"The untold story of the Bush administration is the deliberate annihilation of the Reaganite, small-government wing of the Republican Party," said Michael Greve, director of the Federalism Project at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "A lot of people are very bitter about it."

I can understand the frustration over real or perceived capitulation of conservative principles, but voting for Obama is the wrong response. Obama has now resorted to lying to everyone he meets on the campaign trail. If elected, he will betray conservatives who voted for him much like he has been betraying liberals who are on the verge of nominating him.



Conservatives who may be tempted to vote for Obama would do well to remember the tale of the scorpion.

A scorpion was walking along the bank of a river, wondering how to get to the other side.

Suddenly, he saw a fox. He asked the fox to take him on his back across the river.

The fox said, "No. If I do that, you'll sting me, and I'll drown."

The scorpion assured him, "If I do that, we'll both drown."

The fox thought about it and finally agreed. So the scorpion climbed
up on his back, and the fox began to swim.

But halfway across the river, the scorpion stung him. As poison filled his veins, the fox turned to the scorpion and said, "Why did you do that? Now you'll drown, too."

"I couldn't help it," said the scorpion. "It's my nature."

Obama is a scorpion. He can't help it. It's his poisonous liberal nature.