Wash. Post's Perry Bacon Jr. misrepresented Obama statement to claim he "effectively dismissed the importance of policy proposals"

In a May 29 Washington Post article, staff writer Perry Bacon Jr. asserted that when Sen. Barack Obama "decided to run for president after only two years in the Senate ... he effectively dismissed the importance of policy proposals, declaring in one speech in early 2007, 'We've had plenty of plans, Democrats,' and in another: 'Every four years, somebody trots out a white paper, they post it on the Web.' " But in making the claim, Bacon misrepresented Obama's statement from a March 24, 2007, presidential forum by omitting the very next sentence in which Obama noted the importance of implementing policy proposals. Referring to the need to reform health-care coverage, Obama actually said: "Every four years somebody trots out a white paper, they post it on the web. But the question we have to challenge ourselves is do we have the political will and the sense of urgency to actually get it done" [italics indicate words Bacon left out].

Moreover, Obama's remarks came in the context of announcing that he would be releasing a health-care proposal -- which he subsequently did release -- and stating: "I want to be held accountable for getting it done." From Obama's speech at the presidential forum:

Now, everybody on this stage is going to have a plan to move this health care debate forward. I will be putting out a plan over the next couple of months that details how I would approach the basic principles that by the end of the next president's first term, by the end of my first term, that we're going to have universal health care for every single American in the United States.

And there are going to be some basic principles; that coverage has to be universal, that we're going to have to save costs and get more bang for our health care dollar, that employers, government and individuals are all going to have to put up something, and that savings that we obtain from making a more efficient system can't be just obtained by hitting frontline workers. But in addition to those basic principles I think, what I think is most important is we recognize that every four years we hear somebody has got a health care plan. Every four years somebody trots out a white paper, they post it on the web. But the question we have to challenge ourselves is do we have the political will and the sense of urgency to actually get it done.

I want to be held accountable for getting it done. I will judge my first term as president based on the fact on whether we have delivered the kind of health care that every American deserves and that our system can afford. And I'm not going to be able to do it on my own, so I hope that the SEIU will partner in that process.

Bacon also asserted that many Republicans disagree with Sen. John McCain on immigration, writing, "Unlike Republicans -- many of whom disagree with McCain on issues such as global warming and immigration -- Democratic presidential candidates, the party's leaders in Congress and Democratic voters largely agree on an agenda." In fact, McCain shifted his position on immigration to align himself more closely with the base of the Republican Party. While he previously supported comprehensive immigration reform, at a January 30 Republican presidential debate, McCain said that he would no longer support the comprehensive reform bill he co-sponsored with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) if it came up for a vote in the Senate. McCain now says that "we've got to secure the borders first" -- a position at odds with his prior assertion that border security could not be disaggregated from other aspects of comprehensive immigration reform without being rendered ineffective. Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented instances in which news outlets have ignored McCain's reversal on his own bill and his conservative shift on immigration.

From Bacon's May 29 article, headlined "On Policy, Obama Breaks Little New Ground":

Already famous for his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama entered the Senate with more than the usual aspirations about the impact he could have.

So in 2005, he had his office arrange informal seminars so that experts on health care, the economy, energy and education could brief him. "I'm not running for president," he told a group of experts at his Capitol Hill office in the spring of 2006. But he said he had a "national voice" and wanted to use it.

When Obama changed his mind and decided to run for president after only two years in the Senate, however, he effectively dismissed the importance of policy proposals, declaring in one speech in early 2007, "We've had plenty of plans, Democrats," and in another: "Every four years, somebody trots out a white paper, they post it on the Web." He cast his "new kind of politics" in terms of his ability to transcend divisions and his unique biography and offered few differences on issues from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and the other Democratic presidential candidates.

[...]

In part, Obama's approach reflects the broad consensus that has developed during the Democratic primaries. Unlike Republicans -- many of whom disagree with McCain on issues such as global warming and immigration -- Democratic presidential candidates, the party's leaders in Congress and Democratic voters largely agree on an agenda. There is little of the left-center divide of the Bill Clinton era. Self-identified independent voters broadly favored the Democrats' approach over that of the GOP on Iraq, health care, the economy and dealing with the federal budget deficit, according to a recent Washington Post poll.

Jared Bernstein, a liberal economist at the Economic Policy Institute, praised him for offering a more progressive agenda than the past two Democratic presidential nominees, former vice president Al Gore and Sen. John F. Kerry, neither of whom proposed a universal health-care plan, as Obama has. "There's a recognition that small-bore approaches to solving the big challenges is not sufficient," Bernstein said.