I don’t know what to make the NYT’s smear article of Obama on the front page.  It states that Obama voted present 130 times while in the State Senate.  45 to 50 times in concert with other Democrats usually over budgetary squabbles with Senate Republicans, but a majority of the time usually because Obama expressed dissatisfaction with the particulars of the bill itself… as the Times article noted several umm times. So, really he voted present by his lonesome about 80 times, out of 4,000 as his campaign noted.

First the article says that by voting present Obama ” effectively sidestepp[ed] the issue.”  While the article goes on to say that the main reason Obama voted ‘Present’ on bills was as he put while teaching law at the Univ. of Chicago, ”he had concerns about the constitutionality or effectiveness of some provisions.”

So in the beginning he wasn’t really sidestepping the issue, he was in fact reading the bills and actually thinking about what each bills lawful implications would be.  Reading, thinking about, and understanding a bill would normally be a good quality in a Politician (can you say Patriot Act?) - something the New York Times article doesn’t mention.  He couldn’t simply vote yes or no, because that implied some sort of affirmative or negative attitude towards the bill, where as Obama thought that rubbish legislation whether good or bad shouldn’t be signed into the books.

In regards to the 45 to 50 times Obama used the Present vote, whilst inline with his fellow ‘Present’ voting Democrats, to cause headaches for Republicans over budgetary issues… that’s just plain politics and they’ve been doing it since the dawn of democracy.

In the end the NYT’s article only serves to stir the pot.  I don’t even know how they get away with calling it journalism when the entire article is as vague as white (does that work?).  I mean hell, the google titled for this article is “Obama’s Vote in Illinois Was Often Just ‘Present’ - New York Times.” For every God on Earth’s sake how is 2% of the time ‘often’?