Blog: Barack Obama

I'm glad Barack Obama won the Iowa caucus. Despite serious reservations about Obama's habit of rhetorically running against progressives, I also like much of what he believes, and he is bringing new people into the Democratic Party. And very importantly, Obama has the best chance of defeating Hillary Clinton for the nomination. I believe her Presidency would continue the entrenchment of right-wing frames and hawkish security policies that have been so destructive. (Larry Lessig articulates the case for Obama and against Clinton well.)

Watching CNN last night, I was struck by the lengths to which the commentators went to avoid talking about policy. It was all "the energy of the supporters" and Obama is young and about change and yada yada yada. The excerpt they replayed from Obama's speech was perhaps the most inane piece, the part about independents and Republicans coming together for him (huh?). In the speech, he did talk about policy (a little), and I believe that Hillary Clinton's war vote and ongoing support of saber-rattling in Iran cost her.

But CNN's Candy Crowley actively disagreed when Wolf Blitzer asked her if Clinton's war vote played a part, saying Clinton had changed her position and has been a staunch opponent of war with Iran. That's only true on the surface (she moves us closer while vehemently insisting on her opposition in carefully qualified language). But the surface is all that matters if you're CNN.

Earlier this month, Barack Obama released his plan for technology policy at a speech at Google. Larry Lessig immediately endorsed it, and Public Knowledge had lots of praise. Lessig, PK founder Gigi Sohn, and many Silicon Valley executives have been advising Obama, and their positive influence is clear on the plan.

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At the recent Yearly Kos convention, Laughing Liberally comedians reprised their role from last year opening for the keynote speakers. But the best moment for Laughing Liberally's comedians was at the Barack Obama breakout session after the candidate forum, when Baratunde was called on to ask a question (about coal; Baratunde was disappointed by the answer), introduced himself and his Laughing Liberally affiliation to huge cheers and applause from the room, and afterward, met the Senator, who said, "Apparently, you’re somebody I need to know."

I wish I'd taken this picture. I especially love the person taking the same picture with their cameraphone at the bottom of the frame.

Larry Lessig is speaking at the PDF conference this morning, talking about his campaign to open up the content from the upcoming political debates. He showed a variety of innovative remixes of political content - Jon Stewart conducting a debate between President George W. Bush and 2000 Presidential candidate, Texas Governor Gerge W. Bush, a Paul Wolfowitz parody of "The Office", a love song between Bush and Blair, and the Obama 1984 video.

These remixes of political culture are a tremedous step forward in the ability of citizens to participate in political speech, but they require the ability for creators to use clips of public figures from the commercial media. And while Comedy Central has plenty of lawyers to defend Jon Stewart's right to do this, others don't. NBC attempted to block Robert Greenwald from using a clip of Bush, and the reason they gave? "It's not very flattering to the President." While they backed off this particular terrible excuse, media organizations continue to assert an absolute right to control all content.

Barack Obama and John Edwards have answered the call to open up debate content. Obama wrote, "The Internet has enabled an extraordinary range of citizens to participate in the political dialogue around this election. . . . We, as a Party, should do everything that we can to encourage this participation. . . . Rhere is no reason that this particular class of content needs the protection [of copyright]. We have incentive enough to debate. The networks have incentive enough to broadcast those debates."

Obama's words are terrific not only for their sentiment but also for their choice of themes - he mentions incentives, the fundamental goal of copyright. Where copyright creates incentives to create, it is performing a public good. Where, as in the case of debates, it instead blocks creativity and innovation, it is a harm and has no place in that particular context.

Senator Chris Dodd has also called for opening up the debate content to citizens, as has retired Republican Congressman Robert Livingston. Hillary Clinton has not spoken up on this issue, nor have the major Republican candidates.

I'm starting a candidate scorecard on issues of innovation. Here's the scorecard so far (For space, I'm only mentioning candidates where we know their positions, or who are in the top tier of national polls):

Candidate	Free Debates
Democrats
Obama	A+
Edwards	A
Dodd	A
Clinton	???
Republicans
Giuliani	???
McCain	???
Romney	???