Obama: 'A Bound Man'?

Affirmative Action

During a May 2007 interview with ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Obama indicated that a college admissions officer should not cut his two daughters any slack.

"I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged," said Obama.

But despite the widely covered comment about his two daughters, Obama continues to favor race-based affirmative action in higher education while also supporting affirmative action for low-income students regardless of race.

Steele thinks Obama's comments to Stephanopoulos "skirted almost all of the obvious problems of affirmative action in a very glib way."

"The fact of the matter," said Steele, "is affirmative action would apply to his daughters as it is currently being practiced. And, in fact, it applies more to privileged blacks than it does to lower-class blacks because [lower-class blacks] are not in a position to benefit."

"[Affirmative action] did more damage to black America than segregation did," he continued. "I want to have a feeling that Barack Obama understands that and is going to build policy out of that."

Welfare Reform

Obama wrote in "The Audacity of Hope" that he has come around to the view that conservatives and former President Clinton were right that by detaching income from work, the old welfare system sapped individuals of initiative.

At the same time, Obama has been guarded about whether he would have signed the welfare reform bill approved by Clinton if the Illinois Democrat had been president in 1996.

Speaking to ABCNEWS.com March 14, 2007, after a speech to a group of firefighters, Obama said, "I tend not to look back to what would have been done 10 years ago. We're talking about what I'm going to be doing for the next 10 years."

During a July 17 news conference with Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, Obama refused for a second time to answer whether he would have signed the welfare-reform bill.

"I'm not going to re-litigate what happened back in the 90s," Obama told ABC News. "I'm talking about what's going to happening going forward. Bill Clinton isn't on the ballot."

The refusal to take a stand on the bill signed by Clinton was panned by Steele.

"That's cowardice. That's just cowardice," said Steele. "There's no excuse for not saying that. He knows better. He's just, once again, equivocating."

"I'm sure he was opposed to it at the time," Steele added. "I hope he's not now. I hope at this point he would at least recognize the profound service that was to black Americans."