Barack Obama has distorted his legislative record in Illinois, claiming he got a bill passed which did not pass.

He also repeatedly caved in to Exelon, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator and one of Obama’s largest sources of campaign money by repeatedly re-drafting proposed legislation that initially required all nuclear plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of all leaks. Eventually the bill got so watered down that that all it did was offer “guidance” for voluntary reporting.

And even though Obama claimed while campaigning in Iowa that he got his legislation passed, even the watered-down bill died without being passed.

As the investigative article reports:

—from the article—–

When residents in Illinois voiced outrage two years ago upon learning that the Exelon Corporation had not disclosed radioactive leaks at one of its nuclear plants, the state’s freshman senator, Barack Obama, took up their cause. Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed.”

“I just did that last year,” he said, to murmurs of approval. A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill, even holding up a presidential nomination to try to force a hearing on it, Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks.

Those revisions propelled the bill through a crucial committee. But, contrary to Mr. Obama’s comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate.

Asked why Mr. Obama had cited it as an accomplishment while campaigning for president, the campaign noted that after the senator introduced his bill, nuclear plants started making such reports on a voluntary basis. The campaign did not directly address the question of why Mr. Obama had told Iowa voters that the legislation had passed.

Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers.

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You can read the entire article in today’s New York Times at

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/us/politics/03exelon.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

in the article “Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate”.

I certainly hope people considering Obama over Hillary Clinton give some consideration to what this investigation means. To me it shows that Obama (1) has distorted his record on the campaign trail; (2) has shown he can be used by rich lobbyists and campaign contributors to water-down legislation and (3) the media have generally given Obama a “pass” so far – and how risky is that as we are nominating a candidate for the presidency?

The whole affair is certainly nothing to brag about. It shows how essentially weak Obama really is and how little “change” we could reasonably expect from an Obama administration.

I hope the Obama “something new phenom” dies down and people really think about who we need to (1) win in November and then (2) really get changes we need after this disastrous Bush administration. And yes, I am talking about Hillary Clinton.

doug