Ben Smith has been on the ball about Obama's promises about a Muslim-Western summit promised in Obama's first 100 days of office. This promise's importance was eventually elevated onto the campaign website. The NYT says Cairo is a possibility, though a donor has said that Obama pointed to Jakarta privately among donors:
"Obama told the 20 or so of us at breakfast that 'his first trip as President would be to Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim country,'" Leary recalled.
"He then said when he got off [Air Force One], he would say 'xxxxxxxx' - which we, of course, didn't understand," Leary emailed. "He said that it was Indonesian (which he speaks) for, 'I am back, dudes.'"
I've been particularly interested in Obama's interaction with the Muslim world as President, for two reasons:
Firstly, I don't think there's any doubt that he can do a world of good on the hearts-and-minds front in the War on Terror. Simply being who he is - the American son of a relapsed African Muslim - he has more credibility than Another Old White Guy. There are 1.5 billion Muslims living in the world today (compared to 2.1B Christians and 1B non-religious), and the fact is that a tiny, tiny fraction of them can be called 'militant.' However, any respite fringe lunatic Muslims will receive outside their group will come from other Muslims; It doesn't seem realistic to me that al-Qaeda operatives would ask a Christian for a place to stay. So America - through Obama - must appeal to those billions of Muslims to quietly report, try, and convict the disturbed members of their own population.
"A few weeks ago an American I met at a friends house asked a much repeated query, 'Why do you the Muslims hate the Americans?' To which I answered in the same way as all the preceding instances in which this question was posed to me: 'We don’t hate the Americans, we might disagree with a certain US policy and dislike recent American actions in the Muslim world but we surely don’t hate the American people.'
The American who interrogated me was clearly not convinced with my answer and secretly I wasn't either. The truth is that at present the Muslims hate America and now, they hate not only its policymakers but most of the American people since they have proven recently without a shadow of doubt that they agree with their elite by voting back into office. [...]"
The second thing that both saddens and interests me is that he had to keep these promises relatively quiet during the campaign, lest the emails that railed about his religion become even more fervent in their conviction that he was going to somehow turn the U.S. into Iran, or that his parents had the foresight in 1961 to conclude their half-black almost-bastard son was going to be president and fake birth documentation (both are actually believed by some people, who are very stupid).
This is the hearts-and-minds front that isn't talked about a lot. In addition to the work Obama has to do abroad to convince that America doesn't hate Muslims, he has to get loud parts of America to stop hating Muslims. The last part of the article above says:
"What were you thinking when you threw the Qur'an in the toilet or when you used religion as a means of torture? I fail to see the efficacy of such actions in the so-called war on terror. These methods only point to a deep sickness in your society to which it will take decades for us and the rest of the world to understand its cause and to measure its destructive results. No, the question which someday will have to be answered is why, why do you the Americans hate us the Muslims so much?"
International diplomacy will be slowed or stopped as long as being called a Muslim is a slur in American politics. This is yet another reason for the separation of Church & State: The instant a nation's percieves itself to be for or against any particular religion, you have a Holy War. Holy Wars never, ever, ever, ever work out well for anybody. It's the third classic blunder.
This will not be as hard as it looks. We don't need to have everybody in the streets singing Kumbayah. No amount of work will dispel stereotype - after all there are lots of associations good and bad about Mormons, Jews, and Catholics. (Where would we be without Rabbi/Priest/Minister/Nun jokes?) But most Muslims are just normal people who do weird religious things that aren't much weirder than what other, 'mainstream' religions do: Magic Underpants, insanely long sideburns and beards, quasi-cannibalism, etc.
This will be Obama's toughest job, and frankly I'm not sure how it can best be done.
"Mom, do you remember Reagan's 'big tent' strategy?" "Wasn't that a term for his hair?"
"I am really looking forward to the international reaction to [Obama's] win." "I think if you step outside and listen carefully you'll hear the cheers from our back yard."
"I just hope Obama's inaugural address is enough to bring the international public relations handjob to climax."
"I will be your president, too."
"[toasting] To America."
"Someday I'll be rich enough to hire Nate Silver to help make all my life decisions. 'Should I sleep with her?' 'Well, I'm showing a 35% chance it will end badly.'"
Reach out to John McCain to work together on the issues in which they largely agreed: immigration reform, environmental protection, and earmark reform.
Give The Speech. Ask us not to ask what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country. Instill that sense of patriotism. Don't ask us to shop to save the economy ask us to work to save our nation.
What I want Democrats to do:
REALIZE YOU ELECTED A MODERATE. He's not gonna institute gay marriage everywhere, socialize medicine, and give you a pony.
Don't gloat.
You also did not elect Jesus Christ himself. He's human. And a politician to boot.
What I want Republicans to do:
Call a spade a spade: Eject the completely insane people from your party.
Get back to small-government Goldwater ideals and get a really good nominee (say, oh, Ron Paul?) who professes those ideals. This means not grooming Palin to be the face of the GOP.
Work with Obama. No whining, no empiricists (see #1), no BS. Obama's a centrist (despite the claims of your attack ads) and together you can get a lot done.
There are a lot of artists out there who've been inspired to make Obama-themed works. An entire website is devoted to it. I rather expected a bunch of silly paintings or graffiti but some of it is really complex and incredible.
My vote for "Best Imitation of Winnie the Pooh Vibe":
There's also a really awesome use of LED lights in someone's bike spokes to make a glowing Obama logo in their spokes as they ride.
I've been reading the posts on 538.com regarding how the presidential campaigns have been run with intense interest. In particular, today's post paints a vivid contrast in volunteer enthusiasm. In the article, there is an implied correlation between the enthusiasm of the effort and the amount of power and trust the volunteers are given.
With the McCain campaign, few (if any) volunteers are given enough rope to so much as talk to reporters, for fear of going off-message. Obama's campaign, on the other hand, gives their volunteers guides but are otherwise given free reign to organize, call, and knock on doors. Sometimes this backfires on the Obama campaign. A long while ago, during the primaries, there was a volunteer with a Che Guevara poster hanging up, and more recently, an Obama caller did some drinking and dialing.
Although -- frankly, that audio is awesomely hilarious!
But the payoff is huge: Every town in America has a slew of Obama supporters creating meetings, doing phone bank parties, and canvassing neighborhoods. 538's correspondents have had a hard time just finding McCain volunteers, while Obama supporters are up late every night in houses and offices across the nation.
The conservative ideal is for people to have the power and freedom to guide their own lives without government interference. It's amusing and ironic that the Democratic candidate is running his campaign in such a grass-roots manner.
All of this is background information for a startling conclusion I came up with while reading that 538 article (appropriately called "The Big Empty"): Obama has run his campaign like a community organizer. That much-ridiculed term, which has served as a talking point and particularly ridiculed as resume padding is going to win him the election.
The role of the President is the most mercurial of the 3 branches of the U.S. Government, and its power and stature has ebbed and flowed through the centuries of our nation. But at the moment, I would say that its role is not unlike that of a community organizer: To develop and implement programs that help the U.S. help itself. Many of the most famous Presidential Programs are community programs writ large: Just Say No, The President's Challenge, and so on.
I've maintained for a while now that the power of an Obama presidency lies in his ability to get Americans to help America. Hopefully he will be enough of a centrist to allow those he inspires to do the heavy lifting.
My thinking Senator Obama could be the anti christ is similar to someone looking at a tall person and wondering if they play basketball.
No.
No it's not.
Your thinking Obama could be the anti-Christ is more like looking at someone with a Super Mario Bros. t-shirt and wondering if they're going to anally and vaginally rape you, simultaneously, with your own amputated limbs.
Rachel, on what she'd have said if I had asked her, four years ago, about the possibility that a mixed-race presidential candidate might win the electoral college votes of Arkansas.
I don't generally like Rand, but that was an excellent quote. It relates to something I missed in the debate (I missed the first few minutes). Holy crap, what an important 5 minutes! McCain proposed a fix to the mortgage crisis (followed up with details the next day). I was reading an article about it by Michelle Malkin - who is verrry far right - about it. Turns out - he wants to do what ACORN does. When did McCain start supporting ACORN and Obama stop? This is crazy. Here is another economist’s clarification of the various plans including McCain’s.
On another wholly unrelated note: It looks like Obama’s going to win (he would win even if he lost every toss-up state in the nation, according to the right-leaning RealClearPolitics), but I’m really worried about the negative tack that McCain’s camp is taking. In particular, I’m worried that they are going to whip up the less-sane voters to the point where they’ll become a poison to the country. Wild exaggerations about Obama’s associations with Ayers are getting to the point where when McCain says, "who is Barack Obama?", the audience has yelled back, "terrorist! " Even the NRO - bastion of right-wing thinking - is talking about how it’s going too far:
"Those who press this Ayers line of attack are whipping Republicans and conservatives into a fury that is going to be very hard to calm after November. Is it really wise to send conservatives into opposition in a mood of disdain and fury for a man who may well be the next president of the United States, incidentally the first African-American president? Anger is a very bad political adviser. It can isolate us and push us to the extremes at exactly the moment when we ought to be rebuilding, rethinking, regrouping and recruiting."
They Ayers thing is particularly ludicrous since it was an education board on which they worked together under Ronald Regan’s close Republican friend and ambassador Walter Annenburg. There’s as much a connection to Reagan as there is to Obama. Moreover, McCain didn’t even have the chutzpah to say it to Obama’s face - it’s been in flyers and smear ads.
No campaign should surrender when they feel they’re right. That much is obvious. But it serves no good to the country (quite the opposite) to send your supporters into such a level of spite that they will hurt the nation because they are convinced that Obama really is a Muslim terrorist who hates America. I’m also very sad that McCain, who had very honorably not used his son’s service to further his political campaign has begun to do just that.
It is also disgusting to me that religion is being used to whip up this sentiment, both through fear (of Muslims) and faith (through prayers like this):
"O God, we are in a battle that is raging for the soul of this nation. You, O God, have raised up Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin for such a time as this ... Help them, O God, to strengthen our economy, to keep our taxes and spending low ... and grant them the privilege of being elected the next president and vice president."
Sorry for all the bile in one email, but I really worry about this, and you have been seeing a lot of the stuff that’ll do it. It’s related to something that I’ve been wondering: What could a president do to prove that he is a good president, to those who voted against him? How could you, for example, say in 4 years, "yeah, Obama worked out fine (even if I’m still voting for the Republican)" or the reversal for me if McCain wins. It worries me that for some people this is not possible. Conservatives spilled many gallons of ink about how we need to Support The President between 2001 and 2005, but I’m increasingly convinced it was hypocritical: we won’t have their support for Obama. That’s not to say that Presidents should be above criticism - far from it - but stirring hatred for a president (by anyone) is counterproductive and, frankly, Anti-American.
There's a reason that Obama's competitors keep trying to steal his messages: they know it resonates with everyone it touches.
Some people are pretty determined to make sure it doesn't touch them, of course - ranging from the able-minded cynics to the self-delusional people who insist he's A MUSLIM (the horror).
We want to believe that the idea that America can fix America is possible. The idea is as formidable as America at its best because it IS America at its best.
"We need the United States to lead rough-minded diplomacy, this includes direct engagement with Iran, similar to the meeting we conducted with the Soviets at the height of the Cold War"
- Barack Obama, 15 February, 2008
Aaand our boy George's rejoinder:
"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said at Israel's 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
- George W. Bush, 15 May, 2008
Ah, the difference between "appeasement and "engagement." Obama never said, "appeasement," and you can bet your life that Reagan "engaged" Russia. There were four Gorbachev/Reagan face-to-face summits around the world. Those meetings directly resulted in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Reagan is deified for this role in closing the Cold War peacefully, but his methods are, it seems, forgotten.
But to clarify: Hitler was appeased when the British and French gave him half of Czechoslovakia and hoped he'd stop. Russia and the U.S. entered talks to end the Cold War and agreed to reduce their nuclear weapons arsenal because both recognized that MAD wasn't a good situation for either nation.
I've been looking at the rhetoric between Obama and McCain, and at this point, I don't think either one will do anything differently from each other (regarding this question of diplomacy, anyway). In a way, all I see is McCain pandering a bit to the Republicans, and Obama pandering a bit to the Democrats. Both have said they’d only talk to Iran when they recognized Israel's legitimacy, but that we’ll have to eventually talk to Hama – they might support terrorists, but they won a democratic election in the region. They are, by our own measure, the rightful leaders of that area.
We also do have really good reasons to open relationships with both of those nations. Iran is at least as influential to Iraq as we are, whether we stay or go, whether we like it or not. Moreover, they're the ones getting open ceremonial greetings in the daytime. Cheney had to come unannounced, at night, with body guards. They are also in desperate need of humanitarian aid, need help getting their own country into shape, and Iran's population isn't as radical as its leader. We both have needs that we can help each other out with. The situation is not impossible, but can be made impossible when we dismiss the possibility of finding a mutually-beneficial arrangement. Same goes for Hamas, but even more so: Hamas supports terrorism abroad, and yet runs hospitals, feeds the poor, and takes care of its people. That's how they got elected. Israel also needs to have a good sit-down. They're our staunch ally, and are definitely a stabilizing force within the region, but they can make us pretty uncomfortable when they do land-grabs, or lob missiles into family homes, and Hamas says, "See? This is why they're evil."
None of that can be solved by ignoring the problem, or threatening to bomb everybody in the region that angers us at that particular moment (which was Iran, then Iraq, then Iran again, then it was Hamas, etc.).
Now, this is all just a general outline of course – the complexities that are the Middle East have made it nearly impossible to stabilize since… forever. I don’t know
From what I know about both candidates, their top priority for Iran is to keep them from developing and acquiring nuclear weapons. I know Obama played a part in this a few years ago while working with Republicans on the anti-nuclear weapons proliferation bill. Though I don't think McCain was part of that, I think it's pretty obvious he feels the same way about it.
For Hamas, if I remember right, I've heard both say they want Hamas to recognize Israel's legitimacy (which would be an obvious first step). Obama has, more candidly, noted that Israel is causing problems as well when Israel takes the same posture towards Hamas as Hamas takes towards Israel. He's been blasted for this, but it seems pretty fair to me. Even the Israeli Jewish press (Israelis are less convinced that Israel has flawless plans than the U.S. Jewish press, which seems convinced that any criticism of Israel is out-of-bounds) has generally agreed that Obama is about as "Pro-Israel" as any U.S. politician.
Anyway, like I said, this all strikes me as political buddying-up with each candidates' political base, but I see no daylight between their stances. Still, I don't think it helps McCain at all to defend Bush, the Least Popular U.S. President of All Time, Ever (really).
Here's a really good write up I found about the difference between appeasement and diplomacy here, by someone who was/is for the war, just to show I'm not just being a Loony Lefty, here.
Update: Boy, I'm really not alone. Obama actually went on the attack to denounce the remark (which is rare, though I can't decide if that's good or bad). Nancy Pelosi called it "beneath the dignity of the office of the president and unworthy of our representation at that observance in Israel." Keith Olbermann spent morethan a fewsegments about it. Chris Matthews laid the best damn TV-interview smackdown I've seen since Jon Stewart's Crossfire hot-wiring.
Mr. Simpson, that does not even make sense. You think a secret radical Muslim would marry an atheist? Even if it was purely to piss off Christians? Sleeper agent jihadists are not known for their tolerance of Enlightenment principles!
Seriously, West Virginia, we are going to give you back to Virginia unless you can demonstrate that you can handle statehood again. And no one wants that.
I've written on productive feminism before (1, 2), but this bears another mention. There is a cry going up to the heavens from hardcore feminist supporters who are saying they will not vote (or, incredibly, vote for McCain) out of anger about Senator Clinton's loss of the Democratic nomination:
The Obamabots are under the delusion that if Obama wins the nomination (which he hasn't yet, by the way), all of us in the Hillary camp will forget about the misogyny and come over to their side. Make nice for the sake of party unity. Forgive all the abuse.
Nope.
Several of us have tried over the past couple of months to explain why that won't happen, but the Obamabots don't seem to understand. And I know why: it's because they don't take sexism seriously. When women say we will not reward misogyny, we’re laughed off. The Obamabots just tell more jokes and hurl more insults and write more crass articles about how the little lay-dees have their little pan-tees in a twist.
While I can see why a feminist would be upset at general bias, Barack Obama was not the cause of that bias. In fact he made a point to tell her to stay in as long as she wanted to, emphasized their friendship in speeches, and never said anything to or of her that could be construed as sexist. He obviously didn't agree with all of her policy ideas, and many of her campaign tactics, but frankly that's what an election should be about anyway. So why blame him?
Moreover, he two candidates' stances on a wide variety of issues is very similar. If a feminist were to agree with Clinton's policy ideas and was not just voting for her because of her gender (which would in of itself be sexist), then he is the next-best candidate. If John McCain appoints judges to overturn Roe v. Wade as a result of a feminist boycott, well, you could press shirts with irony like that.
Not everyone who votes against Obama is a racist and not everyone who votes against Clinton is a sexist. Surely some people are! But to lump everyone together like that is counterproductive because it insults feminist allies. All of the falsely-accused will stop listening to reasonable feminists.
Finally, I wish they would consider the possibility that while there's certainly a LOT of misogyny that has been spewed, a lot of people really, honestly, just thought Obama was a better option on purely merit-based grounds.
If Barack Obama or anyone else really cares to know what I think, I will simplify it all down to this. The landmark political fact of our time is the replacement of our middle-class republic by a plutocracy. If some candidate has a scheme to reverse this trend, they've got my vote, whether they prefer Courvoisier or beer bongs spiked with cough syrup. I don't care whether they enjoy my books, or would rather have every scrap of paper bearing my writing loaded into a C-47 and dumped into Lake Michigan. If it will help restore the land of relative equality I was born in, I'll fly the plane myself.
- Thomas Frank
That basically summarizes my enthusiasm for both Obama and McCain, although it's looking more and more like Obama's the more practical option - at least he's mostly realistic about where the money comes from.
The Phoenix Suns' championship run begins in a few hours. Barack Obama has his shot at sewing up the Democratic nomination in the next few weeks. I'll be talking to my landlord about possibly setting up a rent-to-own for my first home. I'll be bringing my car back home and driving my own car for the first time since October, in preparation for the final stages of its restoration.
There is so much potential for joy in my life in May, it's ridiculous, and I have almost no control over any of it.
Regardless of whether or not he wins the Presidency, there is one thing I'm grateful to Barack Obama for. I'm finding out just how much I like or dislike America.
The America I love is full of idealism and grit. It's the nation that got to the Moon, and always acts with its heart in the right place (even when it screws up). It's the nation that faced its demons of segregation head-on and won. The America I love is one in which the determining factor in success is work, not wealth or birth or luck. It retains the almost fanatical Puritan work ethic that built the nation to begin with.
The America that I can't stand is willfully ignorant, judicial, and blames all its problems on other people. It thinks that torture is OK, that Muslims are all evil and crazy, and is so much quicker to judge than to think. It's the America that can't get through a non-fiction book, a movie that questions their world-view, or a speech that asks them to work for what they want. It's welfare-think; group-think; pundit-think.
I know that America is both sides, just as I'm both hard-working and lazy in turns and circumstances. Obama, because he says things as honestly as he can, exposes both sides. When confronted with the anger of his own pastor, he didn't run away; He used it as a metaphor for American Blacks writ large. The America I hate is willfully ignoring that anger and bristles at the thought that anyone could be angry at America - even when a black person is 8.2 times more likely to be in prison than a white person. At that rate, about one in three blacks would have done some jail time during their lifetime.
So much for land of the free.
And Obama took that head on, and, more bravely asked America to look at themselves and their own families for that kind of racism. As an example, he acknowledged his own grandmother as occasionally saying some strong stuff. People freaked out! Oh my God! That nigger called his grandma a racist!
It's so much easier to point a finger than to think about yourself and your own family in a critical light. I've heard an occasional slur out of my friends, family, and myself, although here in Arizona it's much more likely to be directed at a Mexican. Or maybe I look at someone differently, or cross a street earlier than planned. But unless you are looking, you won't find it.
More recently, he acknowledged another kind of anger, and again it was used to manufacture some outrage. He noted how communities in the Rust Belt have been struggling for decades, and that struggle leads to anger that the politicians' promises never materialize. That anger is expressed not in right-left politics, because after thirty years, they know that doesn't matter. So instead it's expressed in the more-polarized politics of God, guns, and gays. But Obama caught flak for this because he, again, pointed out that yes, people are angry.
It's easier to be outraged than thoughtful.
I love to hear people disagree with the policies he wants to implement. That takes thought and at least a basic understanding of policy in general. I hate to hear people ignore his pleas for self-criticism, and for acknowledging anger and real problems within the nation.
So Obama will tell me how much I like this nation. I try not to let the pundits tell me what the nation thinks - they can't help but color their thoughts with their own opinions - and I know there is a bit of both, but who is the majority? I am so afraid and hopeful.
As I blogged waaaay back in October '05, I have a European TV set that doesn't pick up TV signals and instead of a coaxial input, it has a SCART input. This total lack of functionality is good for me because I don't watch TV, but can still watch movies, 'cos it has RCA inputs).
In 2008, though, the U.S. is changing its broadcast TV to be digital. This means that analogue television sets will need converter boxes - and many of those boxes sport RCA outputs. Suddenly, the market is being flooded with cheap converter kits made just for me.
At the moment, my lack of broadcast TV is a blessing. It probably saves me a lot of time. I like just using it for watching the DVDs I have, which often are TV shows anyway I also have it attached to my computer for watching YouTube videos or, more recently, Obama's speeches and debates. Yes, partly I watch them on the TV because I'm a fan, but also because they're often 45 minutes or longer, and I'd rather sit on the couch for that.
Still, it would be nice to catch the occasional Suns game, now that the playoffs are coming up. And there are some good TV shows out there...
So, for all that angst I went through, and all the noise the Clinton campaign is making about momentum from their three (very narrow) wins over Obama last Tuesday in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island...
Obama came out ahead in the delegate count, by 4 delegates. How? Well, the margin of victory for Clinton on Tuesday was 4 delegates (out of 370, or 1%). But California modified its delegate count, reducing Clinton's share from 207 to 203, and Obama's from 163 to 167, an 8-delegate swing.
Which means that after Tuesday, Clinton actually is further behind Obama.
I am amused. I really hope that the Obama campaign picks up on this and uses it to deflate the 'momentum' bubble his opponent will try to float.
*FTL is Internet slang for "for the loss," which is derived from "for the win," (FTW) as in, "Here comes Steve Nash, shoots a three 'for the win' - yes!" - and is used any time someone is very awesome (Obama FTW), or very much a loser (Clinton FTL).
The skill involved in delivering hundreds and hundreds of speeches, without "um," or awkward pauses is tough enough. But the way he can do so with grace and, indeed, rhythm akin to music is unreal.
Not only is he able to deliver these messages in a beautiful way, but he also is delivering several thick books' worth of information in them - all memorized. He rarely looks at his notes. He doesn't even have notes in his interviews, but is able to deliver that same tone and nuance.
The most ridiculous example of this was during a recent interview on Cleveland TV. The interviewer first asks about NAFTA, and he debunks a rumor about his campaign. Then, he was asked to name two things he could do as President immediately (i.e., without Congress) after being sworn in. He could've said, "get out of Iraq," but instead he had a more nuanced response involving a meeting about the Chiefs of Staff. He also (admirably) wanted to tell his Attorney General to review every executive order to examine which are necessary for national security. Not breathless rhetoric about restoring American rights, but a thoughtful response about what he would do and how.
Then he gets a question about NASA. Incredibly, he had a finger on the nation's pulse: it's been stuck in place, needs to review its budget to make for more effective innovation, and starting to plan for manned flights deeper into space in order to grab the imagination of the people again.
His third question was easy enough, about whether there would be a divisive campaign between himself and McCain (he didn't think so).
Finally, he was asked about the basketball trade between Cleveland and Chicago, and he gave a pretty detailed analysis of the Chicago Bulls' and Cleveland Cavaliers' position in the NBA.
No "um," no awkward pauses, no notes, and no half-cooked answers. Why can't all politicians do this?
"At the end of the day, you want someone who knows what they're doing on day one"
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend on MSNBC with Brian Williams, 12 Feb 08 (video).
"What he doesn't have is the old, you know the old Mondale: "what the beef?" What are the details, and what is it going to cost? Which I assume one day we'll learn."
Bob Dole on MSNBC with Brian Williams, 12 Feb 08 (video).
This is beginning to irritate me. When Barack Obama was initially criticized for having too much content, a tone too professorial. People have noticed his soaring rhetoric in the last six months not because nobody cared before, but because he didn't use it as much before. When he made the shift, the New York Times devoted an entire article about the shift to more pointed rhetoric.
I don't know why this is the case. Obama has posted an absurd amount of information on his campaign website. Take environmental and energy reform. Senator Obama's page has twenty pages in PDF format detailing environmental and energy reform, and several very specific plans to cap carbon emissions, solutions for green energy, and so on. Senator Clinton has a little less, and it's not as well-presented, but the plans are equally robust.
Thankfully, this is beginning to get some attention. Just a few days ago, Matt Yglesias (who's working for the Atlantic just like my favorite blogger Andrew Sullivan) posted a great rundown of why it's ridiculous, and Carpetbagger followed up, although I think he Googled the wrong thing: he should've been looking for all the Hillary proponents who parrot the meme.
On the other hand, John McCain's website has a video of his stances on the environment (great Republicans were environmentalists, his belief in global warming, his concern with China and India, and oil independence). These are sensible stances, and ones he shares with Obama. Compared to the Democratic side, it's paltry. Even on issues that McCain ought to have a world of information (such as national security), there are no numbers. His positions are clear, but the means to accomplish them are not. That's not to say McCain doesn't know or understand his own positions, but how am I as a voter supposed to find out, if he doesn't put it on his own website?
So John McCain has some work to do, if he's going to try to convince the American people that Obama truly is trying "to encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas [and offering] not a promise of hope, [but] a platitude," well, he better get his own ideas out there.
I'm going to be comparing and contrasting the two candidates (Clinton's toast, in my opinion) from time to time for a while.
In this post, I'm looking at character: the candidates' grounding in their beliefs and their general honesty and integrity.
I find this is a wash.
It's hard to criticize John McCain on character. He earned his way through the military, made a name for himself out of the shadow of his father, and what he did as a P.O.W. is impossible for myself and most other people to understand, even if it was thirty years ago. His reputation as a "maverick" isn't undeserved, and he has made a lot of stands with both sides of the aisle in Congress, and has angered the far-left as well as the far-right fairly regularly. He has also had a positive campaign.
Barack Obama's history is also almost impossible to criticize: he didn't have a lot going for him demographically (the child of a teen mom whose father left him), he worked hard, worked his way through Harvard and in a pretty dramatic way, declined the rich jobs as a high-time lawyer to work on the streets of Chicago.
John McCain should really be admired for his willingness to say in straightforward terms that he wants the Middle East to have the kind of American influence that we've had in Korea, Japan, and Germany (though, of course, not in Vietnam): 100 years of permanant bases. I don't think that's a realistic goal, but I have to say that his willingness to say something that he must've known he would be criticized for endlessly reflects well on his character.
Barack Obama is also keeping with that sort of honesty in an equally impressive manner, when he goes to Detroit to tell automakers to stop building terrible cars. He preached gay rights in a Southern Baptist church. That sort of thing is incredible, as well.
So I'll start this series saying that I can't be happier about the two parties' choices. I had made plans to leave the country, on the occasion that the nominations were to have gone to Hillary and Giuliani. Instead, I look forward to a tough but issues-centric campaign that ultimately will help Americans understand their own politics and nation better.
There are a lot of things that impress me about Barack Obama, but his desire to use technology to create transparency in government is one issue that truly does set him apart.
His campaign updates his YouTube channel about a half dozen times per day, often including in-depth interviews with promoters, footage of promotional stops, and many well-edited and mixed TV interviews. Hillary updates 3-5 times a week, mostly with ads and TV excerpts. I couldn't find an official John McCain outlet. His website includes community webware (think MySpace), and I'm sure helps the people within it organize more effectively.
So when he says that he wants to expand the workings of the first bill he passed as a congressman, his "Google for Government" program, to organize and make transparent the government's workings through technology, I believe him. That transparency can be seized upon by a concerned America, because the government isn't great at policing itself. Barack knows that.
In this way, his message is different from Hillary's: "We" versus "She." She wants to fix things. It's a noble sentiment. But Barack knows that no politician in Washington can fix the nation. WE have to do it, and we have to be enabled by political communities like on his website, and OnTheIssues.
There are other good examples of technology being used as part of sensible, positive change. He went to Detroit to insist that they change their technology (despite the tepid applause). He promised to help them by subsidizing R&D costs in exchange for progress and commitment from them and the American people. The Obama health care plan wants to streamline and digitize our medical records, most of which are inexplicably still on paper.
The lack of these credentials and ideas in the propositions and efforts on the part of the current administration (who prefers the destructive status quo), as well as that of McCain (who has no interest), and Clinton (who has no excuse, really).
Driftglass on why Obama's enthusiasm/inspiration matters in the practical affairs of politics:
People are willing to go to war for scraps of cloth called flags.
They are willing to die for scraps of wood called a cross.
And 70 years ago as their world fell apart, Americans were willing to give their hearts away to a horse.
A horse.
Because people are flesh and blood, not circuits and spreadsheets, and we need hope and inspiration every bit as much as we need 10-point programs.
Which unfortunately makes us go weak in the knees for saints and charlatans alike.
Maybe this not the way it should be, but it is the way it is, and as proud members of the Reality Based community we need to accommodate ourselves to the fact that human nature is a force every bit as real and formidable as gravity.
If you do not understand this, you will never understand politics.
I'm a graphic designer. So when I see this, it just makes me very happy. In fall, when the race starts heating up, I am gonna print these up (or maybe get some people in the Obama campaign to do it!).
The kind of man that can tell an Atlanta church to embrace homosexuals, the Detroit Autoworkers Union to stop making crappy cars, and the American people that they're part of the solution is a man I want to be President.
The kind of man with the foresight to realize that Iraq was going to be a disaster, not out of some naive optimism, but because he wanted to go after the people who'd actually attacked.
The kind of man that would help a competitor in a debate, even if it meant giving up the advantage.
The kind of man who proudly proclaims himself a Hopemonger, and says: "in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."
The kind of man that inspires people from all places: poor men to pop stars, in the country, in the cities, and yes, Democrats and Republicans.
