The tendency of Barrack Obama to vote "present" on controversial matters during his time in the Illinois State Senate is getting some media attention lately, and his campaign has sought to dismiss the criticism by claiming there were good, sound political strategies involved in Obama's decision to avoid voting.

The most absurd aspect of the whole story is not his votes -- which are already pretty absurd -- but rather his attempted defense of those votes.  Obama's defense of not doing the job he was elected to do? He couldn't vote on those bills, because his votes would've been used against him when he ran for reelection.

HUH? Since when is it a legitimate argument to say, "I didn't vote on that bill, because it would hurt my political future." Even worse is that much of the liberal press has actually accepted this ridiculous, indefensible opportunistic point of view.  So, pretty absurd and inexcusable, right?

Oh, but wait -- it gets better!  Not only does he admit his votes (or lack thereof) were based on purely political calculations, and not only does the mainstream media accept and defend his argument.  Deciding to just take the ball and run with it, Obama and his supporters say that not voting out of personal political opportunism is in fact an example of true leadership on these issues he wouldn't vote on!

What is interesting is that during all this examination of Obama's record in the Illinois Senate, nobody is raising the issue of Obama's serial non-voting in Congress.  Let's take a look at how he voted during his long one-year career in the U.S. Senate:

He skipped voting on 26 of 59 budget, spending, and tax measures – that means he didn't bother to vote on 44% of these measures during his entire career in the Senate. He skipped NINE out of fifteen votes on health related measures. He skipped voting on FIVE of six transportation measures in 2007.  He skipped voting on FOUR of five welfare-related measures. He skipped voting on about half of environmental-related measures. He skipped voting on half of education measures. He constantly skipped out on votes relating to farm subsidies and agriculture expenditures.

He voted AGAINST a bill that would deny legal status to undocumented immigrants convicted of aggravated felonies, domestic violence, stalking, violation of protection orders, crimes against children, or crimes relating to the illegal purchase or sale of firearms. But then he voted FOR a bill reducing the number of guest workers. Now, regardless of one's view on immigration in general, if you had to choose between allowing in MORE criminals or MORE legal workers, which would you choose? That's all I'm saying!

He skipped voting on future military funding for Iraq, as well as multiple other Iraq funding measures, skipped voting on the Iraq Withdrawal Amendment, after first voting AGAINST it a few months earlier; and he also skipped voting on the measure designation Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. But he's been running around the country for months saying he opposes the war and that he'll end the war, while being unwilling to go on record about any of it.  I'm not saying he should have voted for a withdrawal, I'm just saying he's like a lot of cowardly liberals who say something but are unwilling to actually risk backing it up with action.

Finally, in an apparent attempt to continue his strong record of leading by non-example from his grand days in the Illinois Senate, Obama skipped voting on two of three abortion-related bills in Congress. At least on this issue, his vote -- or rather, non-vote -- has remained consistent, I guess.

Well, that's one way to ensure the Republican candidate won't be able to attack him for his record in the Senate -- just avoid having one!