Gotcha Politics: A fresh look at John McCain.
Of late, I’ve been burnishing Bush 41’s reputation. I now take up the cause of John McCain again, as I have before, in hopes that you, too, will give the man a fresh look, freed from the litanies and shibboleths of Gotcha Politics.
Gotcha Politics are just not wise. McCain has made his bed very, very hard just now, as much as saying Obama wants to win an election and lose the war. Matter of fact, I think that's exactly what he is saying. That's going to cost him this election. I cannot remember such a nasty thing said of any candidate in modern times, can you?
It's just hard competing on the basis of the facts. When the going was tough, McCain said we needed more troops in Iraq to stabilize the situation. That was ballsy, it was horribly unpopular at the time, and McCain was right. We did need more troops then. McCain has a son who fought in Iraq, he never puts that fact on the tube. McCain believes one thing, and many people around here believe the same thing. You can't argue with a man's beliefs. We can argue from the facts, which never take sides. The more we look at those facts, the blurrier the issue becomes.
Obama had the luxury of saying the war was a bad idea from the beginning. His ass wasn't on the line in the Senate, he was sitting in his comfy Lakefront Liberal world in Chicago. Obama wasn't faced with the all-too-real prospect of opposing a war which might actually have succeeded. Opposing a wildly popular president backed by the momentum of 9/11 and seeming to defend a monstrous dictator such as Saddam Hussein was political suicide. Even John Kerry got up in front of the Senate and said he'd back the war against Saddam, but there had better goddamn well be WMDs there.
Well, there were no WMDs. The war went sideways. We got Saddam, but we didn't win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis. The war went sideways because we didn't have enough troops. Everyone with any sense told Rumsfeld and Bush the simple truth, and that was damned near political suicide. I was saying we'd better follow Teddy Roosevelt's advice: Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft. Oh the guff I got for that line of rhetoric, they chewed my butt on dKos all day long.
Before we get all huffy about McCain's mis-steps and timeline problems, we'd better accept a few of his assertions. Bush didn't follow the Powell Doctrine, even when the man was in his administration. Here was the polished general who won the most lopsided victory in the history of modern warfare, and Bush sent this man off with a pack of dodgy and now-disproven factoids about WMDs. When McCain said we needed more troops, he got a lot of flak for it at the time, oh there goes that old Maniac McCain, and some of that guff came from the White House.
I’m a Liberal. I’m proud to be a Liberal, and I oppose this war in Iraq. That said, I oppose the war we’re fighting, not the war in principle. This war could have been won outright. Saddam needed to be slapped down. Bush the Wiser knew his war couldn't be taken to Baghdad. He knew all hell would break loose if he did. James Baker said it best: roughly this: “People used to ask me why we didn't take out Saddam, why didn’t we go to Baghdad. Guess what, they don’t ask me those questions any more.”
Bush calls himself The Decider. He decided wrong. He decided against Powell, against his generals, and yes, against John McCain. Had John McCain been in the Oval Office on 9/11, this country would be in far better shape. Bush’s toadies and slime mongers made sure that didn’t happen.
McCain’s a good man, a better man than most of us are ready to admit. He’s now past his prime, and his message is not as popular or relevant as it once was. He endured in the face of terrible privation and he suffered greatly for our country. I have serious questions about his time as a prisoner of war, but I cannot say I would have held up as well as he did. While he was in that prison in Vietnam, the world passed him by. America lost its taste for wars of foreign intervention in Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia. Of this he knew nothing, while he was a prisoner of war. I am disgusted by his subsequent dealings with both Vietnam and his captor The Bug, but this may be Groupthink, fueled by cheap beer and the opinions of friends down at the VFW. I call myself a Christian, but have trouble forgiving my enemies, despite praying the Lord’s Prayer which asks The Almighty to forgive my sins, as I forgive others their sins against me. Call me a hypocrite: it’s true. I can’t forgive. But still I turn these things over in my mind, and I see more to John McCain, enough to warrant this diary, urging my fellow Liberals to a more nuanced view of a truly heroic man. If he is flawed, all great men are defined by their flaws. We lesser men are merely defined by our successes, for they are fewer.
McCain’s long career in the Senate deserves our respect: he once had a reputation for blunt speaking and plain dealing. When McCain’s reputation came into question over campaign finances, he did an about-face, paired himself with Russ Feingold and tried to put an end to the most egregious of the problems. Yet money still seeps, yea floods into the political process, despite his best efforts to stanch the tide of sewage.
McCain stands in contrast to the mediocrity of his peers. I cannot understand why he cannot distinguish his message from that of George W Bush. Like Al Gore and John Kerry, I believe McCain has much to say, but he is saddled by worthless political advisors who cannot effectively relay that message.
Every president moves into the White House, very much a pig in a poke. Bush 43 came to office, promising to bring back some dignity to the presidency. Believed to be a small-government business-oriented governor with a deep bench of advisors, who could have predicted he’d be the very Nation Builder he promised he wouldn’t be? Nobody expected Clinton to behave the way he did in his first term, though the troubles of his second term were fairly predictable. Do not be deluded by the glamour of rock star politicians or scoff at the mis-steps of the Other Guy. The stakes are too high for us, who style ourselves students of politics, to succumb to cheap shots and Gotcha Politics.
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
- BlaiseP's blog
- Login or register to post comments
subject to conditions, of course:
Sounds like 16 months for substantial US withdrawal is reasonable to aspire to, and it is very possible, it is just not set in stone.
Is that a fair interpretation of what McCain said today?
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
)would now seem to include taking into account what the Iraqis want, well done Maliki, advantage Obama.
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Excellent diary, in a number of ways. In addition to being well-written (structure, eloquence, tone/style) and substantive, it is darn nice to see someone thinking and speaking independently and deeply, seeing individuals/personalities and issues with an appreciation for all their complexities, pro's/con's/strengths/weaknesses, etc., and acknowledging a mixed bag rather than reflexively adhering (deliberately, due to strong subconscious bias, or some combination) to some "party line" that sees one "side" (candidate, party, position, etc.) as the White Knight and the other as Satan (forgive the mixed metaphor).
Kudos and thanks.
- Login or register to post comments
)Look, we're all in this together, Conservatives and Liberals. We can't constantly be at each others' throats, when that happens, our enemies win. The world is full of people who really do hate us.
I say we ought to talk to them, work out why they hate us, and come to terms with them. They're not going to be our good buddies, ever, but we have to talk to them. That's the way a Liberal thinks.
But the Conservative viewpoint is actually quite rational: we have our own society, it's under attack from many quarters, and we have a right to strike back against such attacks.
Both viewpoints are needed, and this horrible squabbling is so counterproductive, I believe it only serves the purposes of our enemies, and woe betide the sorry naif who believes we can make friends of these Islamists.
If Liberals stand for anything, it's the rights of man, especially the rights of women. Conservatives stand up for other aspects of our society which badly need defending, and thank God for you guys, even in retreat, you must never give up the fight. But I caution you, Bush never was a conservative, and you know it, so quit circling the wagons around his policies. I know that's how you think, loyalty and unity are important to you. We Liberals feud among ourselves, which is why we haven't been winning elections lately. But if you're going to win any more elections, you must free yourselves from the chains of the Republican Party. Stop being led around by the nose, and embrace true Conservative principles. Small government. Low taxes. Law and order. Personal responsibility. That sort of thing. Not this crazy Surge for Ponies in Iraq. That's Nation Building, it's not Conservative.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Conservatives stand up for other aspects of our society which badly need defending, and thank God for you guys, even in retreat, you must never give up the fight. But I caution you, Bush never was a conservative, and you know it, so quit circling the wagons around his policies. I know that's how you think, loyalty and unity are important to you. We Liberals feud among ourselves, which is why we haven't been winning elections lately. But if you're going to win any more elections, you must free yourselves from the chains of the Republican Party. Stop being led around by the nose, and embrace true Conservative principles.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, eeeeeeasy fella. Seems like you're being a bit presumptuous about my views and engaging in a bit of stereotyping, too. Or as Deniro said in Taxi Driver, "You talkin ta' me?"
Look, we're all in this together, Conservatives and Liberals. We can't constantly be at each others' throats, when that happens, our enemies win. The world is full of people who really do hate us.
I say we ought to talk to them, work out why they hate us, and come to terms with them. They're not going to be our good buddies, ever, but we have to talk to them. That's the way a Liberal thinks.
But the Conservative viewpoint is actually quite rational: we have our own society, it's under attack from many quarters, and we have a right to strike back against such attacks.
Both viewpoints are needed, and this horrible squabbling is so counterproductive, I believe it only serves the purposes of our enemies, and woe betide the sorry naif who believes we can make friends of these Islamists.
I think I've seen roughly that view expressed before in different terms (profanity warning for this video)
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )If you don't express those viewpoints, I would think it's pointless calling yourself a Conservative. Saaay, where did all the Conservatives go? Seems they can't distinguish themselves from Bush's positions.
Maybe, just maybe, all those positions are being taken over by the Democrats. The Republican Party might just have morphed into Thatcher Tories over the last few decades, only Iraq was a bit more to bite off and chew than the Falklands.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Wouldn't want to excuse you "to death", or do anything else to you "to death", even figuratively. The world needs more -- not fewer -- devil's advocates, independent thinkers, and people appreciating complexity and a variety of perspectives, and, while I wouldn't want to rush to judgment, you may be such a person (although the presumptuousness and stereotyping you exhibited may indicate otherwise).
All I was doing was offering what I consider constructive criticism: to be less presumptuous than that comment seemed to indicate. Hopefully we could agree that you don't know nearly enough about my views to lump me in with some cookie-cutter stereotype in your mind.
And I'll offer more: be open to constructive criticism. Not that all criticism, even if meant constructively, is valid or worthwhile (and much of it is neither), but be open to it, and if it seems valid and indeed constructive, appreciate it (even if silently) rather than reflexively reacting (or overreacting, as the case may be).
I look forward to that diary of yours re: Iraq.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )The arguments don't succumb to facile summaries. I'm not singling you out as the Voice of Conservatism. It's surprisingly difficult to get Conservatives to say "This we believe" about anything these days. When pinned down, it seems far too many so-called Conservatives will say "This we do NOT believe."
While I do not equate Conservatism with Fascism, the hallmark of the fascist was his vagueness in the positive and his sharpness in the negative. Clear in what he hates and rather fuzzy on anything else, both the fascist and modern conservative make much of the Homeland, the March of Progress, National Pride, the tokens of power and glory, especially the flag, craven hero-worship (Petraeus being our new Trajan) the siren call of myth, especially the myths of past glories, the parallels are sinister and truly shocking.
Since the death of WF Buckley, American Conservatism has lost any semblance of a unified voice and another must be found. Bill Kristol is not up to the job: did you see him painfully grinning last night on Fox, that fey little ass biter, scoffing at Obama in Berlin? It's as if the Liberals are winning the intellectual debate by default, for nobody has yet arisen to espouse what was once an honorable position in the affairs of men. There are no Edmund Burkes among today's conservatives, but more than one Goebbels is to be found.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )have absolutely nothing exclusively to do with 'conservatism' or any other ideology or mere political leaning. Over the past century they have been a notable fixture at the parades and rallies of every single power bloc, political cause, and government--both consensual and imposed--that one can imagine. They have been a notable feature of both Stalin and Putin, of Saddam and Ahmadinejad, of Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. They have appeared at Klan rallies and Civil Rights demonstrations. In the case of America they are a potent and needed set of symbols to help tie together a nation that might not otherwise exist. Yes, scoundrels take refuge in them and exploit them--but a greater number of uncomplaining workaday heroes have died believing in them.
I fail to see anything shocking, sinister, or craven in hero-worship--an emotion I have rarely felt in my life in any case--and even less to fear in national pride. Or ethnic pride. Or sports fandom. These are all natural and pardonable human emotions and moreover, our identities are intimately bound up in them. And our identities are all we are, all that distinguish us from our enemies and from the dumbest of brutes. And, finally, I would trust the most bitter of my ideological enemies if he were a true patriot--a lover of his 'patria' or homeland--more than I would the closest of my friends if he were not, because only people possessed of true self-respect can ever be negotiated with.
I'm your biggest admirer, Blaise, but on this issue I will never agree with you. Excoriate modern conservatives all you like--I am not one of them, anyway--but leave the flag--and the flag-wavers--alone ;)
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )You're busy arguing about two different things under the same name, hence the confusion. There's absolutely nothing wrong with patriotism, hero-worship, sports fandom, etc. These emotions are powerful unifiers and lie at the root of family, clan, nation, people.
But when the name of the game is using somebody's favorite outward symbols of patriotism to cudgel those deemed not patriotic *enough*, you're crossing over into a venomous orthodoxy. Demanding kowtowing gestures of uniformity, testing one another's purity of commitment to the state while whispering of fifth columns and back-stabbers, asking the shibboleth of every citizen and every public servant, is not only social control in the form of narrow-minded bigotry...it's also goddamned un-American.
Beautifully said, but only true when they also have respect for *you.*
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Hey Jordan, watch the posting rules, man. Your date last night may have gone well, but to tell us that "shebloeth" you is really inappropritate.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )as to whether your political positions can properly be called "conservative" or not?
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Some of my positions are conservative, some liberal, some centrist, some center-right, some center-left, some libertarian, some "other". And in addition to one's positions, there are one's rationales for those positions, one's ideological perspective, one's analytical approach, one's degree of bias, one's values and priorities, one's premises/assumptions, one's logic, one's level of openness and sincerity, one's willingness to acknowledge drawbacks/weaknesses of one's own positions/rationales, etc., any or all of which can be different between two people who share the same position on a given issue or even who agree generally on issues.
Which is why I offered plenty of links of past diaries of mine for him or anyone else to read if he/they really want to get a sense of my positions, my rationales and my approach to issues*, as opposed to just trying to find some cookie-cutter label to slap on someone.
* not that I presume anyone has that level of interest.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )in any dogmatic fashion then what was your original objection to BlaiseP's comments?
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )In a reply to me, he wrote, referring to conservatives and to me (excerpting)
I think I was clear in my reply to that comment. Not sure what's unclear to you.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )...she the shween of shengland?
--“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Shorry. Couldn't resist the sheep shot.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )once we lose the ability to articulate the deeper reality they are intended to represent. BlaiseP correctly points out the lack of any serious conservative voices remaining in America.
Gosh, even George W. Bush said: "When people are hurting, government must act!"
As a symbol of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of 1787, the Federalist Papers, Gettysburg Address and Lincoln's Second Inaugural (amongst other things) the flag is to be venerated.
This however simply is idolatry
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )except when it comes to who tries to repeal the First Amendment should anyone burn it. As someone who actually burned a flag, (an old worn one, reverently, as part of the detail, in a hibachi, after it had been hauled down by the color guard at Larsen Barracks) I find all such faux patriotism repugnant, a sinister attempt to repress our freedom to protest against our government.
Heroes embody noble traits, but they are not to become the objects of veneration. David Petraeus is not quite the Noble Warrior we might wish him to be, however sage and victorious a commander he may seem from the war reporting. He does not make policy.
The fascist worships idols, often beautiful idols. Those who will not bow down to those idols are branded enemies of the state. It all begins well enough, with the oft-used Dolchstosslegende. It soon enough ends up with oaths of personal fealty, not to the state, but to a man, hence the reference to Trajan. We must not make gods of mere mortals, even of heroes.
You have been sadly deluded into believing the symbol is the thing itself.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )as the flag itself is. Simple, I know, but I tend to have simple views on a lot of things. Which is why I like Graham Nash.
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Ahh simple views. But as Jack Handey said:
"It's a shame that families have to be torn apart by something as simple as wild dogs."
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )I'm just gonna use that point re: flag burning as an excuse to promote my Official 2007-2008 Guide to Euphemistic Political Bullsh*t
See "Flag-burning" (in the Republican section).
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Mine is one of American patriotism. If that's a delusion, it's hardly a sad one. In fact, I urge it upon you.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )The flag is only a symbol. Wave your flag all you like, just recognize it as the embodiment of something which is rapidly losing relevance in the world today.
Our republic is what matters, the flag is only its totem. The flag which flies over the White House is the same flag as the one laid over the coffins of thousands of servicemen and women, who died for a cause they did not choose, obeying the orders of witless leaders in the prosecution of a war they did not have to fight. It is the same flag flying over Guantanamo and the one sewn to the shoulders of men who waterboard their victims.
I find patriotism, like all religions and other matters of faith, to be at best a private matter. It grows dangerous in the hands of a mob. Patriotism, said Ambrose Bierce, is not the last refuge of the scoundrel, it is the first. Flags and songs and torchlight parades always precede something horrible.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent );)
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )to every human being on the planet;
Thomas Jefferson's amendments to the traditional "rights of Englishmen" proclaimed those rights to be the common heritage of all humanity.
In Berlin, Barack Obama is merely taking the latest steps in the ongoing process of extending those inalienable rights to everyone on the planet.
Contra Justice Scalia, our rights pre-date the Constitution of 1787 and are indeed the common heritage of all humanity.
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )I used to believe in Jesus...
...Jesus Alou. But then I thought, "If the guy is supposed to be capable of miracles, why can't he consistently hit .300?"
So today I'm an agnostic.
Actually a dyslexic agnostic: I don't know if there's a dog.
ok, I've filled my corny joke quota for today.*
* Which don't necessarily mean ahm stoppin' !
- Login or register to post comments
| parent ). . .in I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally--Jim Bouton's sequel to Ball Four--was his description of the things that Doug Rader would do to try to make Jesus Alou--a very polite and sensitive man--lose his lunch. The crowning achievement in this effort was leaving a "decoration" of a fecal variety on a birthday cake that had been sent to the clubhouse for Alou. The payoff was that everyone assumed the object had come from a gag store until Alou himself approached the cake, sniffed, and started screaming: "IT'S REAL! IT'S REAL! AAAGGHHHH!" before running out of the clubhouse. The other players--not as sensitive as Alou but having their limits--quickly followed, staying out until the unfortunate clubhouse maintenance man had disposed of the cake.
--- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Interesting. I read in Sparky Lyle's "The Bronx Zoo" that when some player got a birthday cake in the clubhouse, someone would sit on it bare-assed.
I guess ass-cake humor was big among baseball players in the 70s. Wonder if it's endured, i.e., if it qualifies as "classic". Today, it's revelations of baseball players' steroids. Back then, it was revelation of their hemmorhoids.
ok, I'm starting to make myself kinda sick.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )[Scrolling banner a few days ago on the often very funny "Red Eye" show on Fox.]
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Perhaps willfully. Perhaps not. ;-)
Anyway, this is indeed the perfect icon or symbol for the modern American Right
Cheers!
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )I've been waiting for an excuse here to stick in the "Red Eye" banner since I saw it earlier this week, but needed a patsy.
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )...Jesus and Jefferson didn't crib from GWB.
--“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Bill White just compared an inexperienced and only moderately artful young politician to both Jesus and Thomas Jefferson without so much as a smiley.
now THAT's scary...
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Obama is merely continuing a process started by others far far greater than he.
Obama, a half Kenyan & half Kansan candidate for President, is the logical consequence of the ideas and principles launched by Jefferson and the other Founders more than 200 years ago.
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )the sexual process launched by Jefferson. Other than his mixed race, I fail to see anything else about him that warrants your new-age messianic interpretation, however. His politics are all but indistinguishable from Clinton's.
You're just love-sick, dude.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )sums up our disagreement rather well.
Either we take the words written in 1776 and 1787 seriously, or we do not. And each of us is free to choose where we wish to stand concerning such things.
= = =
There also is a parallel tension with the Christian - Jewish theological tension.
Are Americans somehow "special people" or are the rights proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence universal rights of every human being everywhere on the planet?
If we answer "no" then why are we special?
If we answer "yes" then we Americans are unique amongst the nations of the world.
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )between Obama's world tour and 'Christian - Jewish' theological tension?
I can't possibly comment on this, because I really can't even imagine what you're talking about.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )willful, or not.
The parallel is whether "Americans" or "America" can properly be viewed as "special" or "unique" or "chosen"
Excessive idolatry of the American flag would point in that direction, especially since our founding documents rather plainly assert that our nation was created to protect and defend rights that pre-existed our nation, rights that are the common possession of all humanity.
= = =
Obama's speeches are at times vacuous however who other than he is taking seriously the political philosophy embedded in our founding documents?
Of note: Ronald Reagan was highly praised by the Right for giving speeches that referred back to the loftier philosophical intentions of the Founders even as the Left accused him of vacuity.
Consider Barack Obama our revenge for inflicting Reagan on us.
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more – not less.
I'm far from an expert, but I don't believe there's a reference anywhere to the "burdens of global citizenship" in the papers that document the principles on which the country was founded. I assume that's because those supposed burdens are contrary to the concept of independence from other countries that drove the founding fathers. My impression is that the country's founders believed our government did not exist to burden it's populace by "requiring [me, us]to do more" as "global citizens". I'm not required to do jack.
The short of this is that I don't carry any burden as a world citizen because I'm not one, and because the Constitution and Bill of Rights preclude the government in general, and Barack Obama in particular, from imposing that burden on me. And the more he tries, the less I'll do.
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Compared to the mystical relationship between Russians and their 'motherland' or even Thais and their ethnic ancient monarchy, we Americans are unremarkable. Every country has its anthems and its myths and symbols.
Who other than Obama is taking the Constitution and the Declaration seriously? Um, lots of people, including many here. It's all a matter of interpretation. You are obviously impressed with his. I am less and less with every passing day.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )A review of the thread . . .
* * *
* * *
To which I asked whether we take seriously the texts of 1776 and 1787.
Are the rights described in the Declaration of Independence (written by Jefferson, but with many more John Hancock affixed thereto) universal human rights or American-only rights?
Are the Jews a unique Chosen People or did Jesus throw open the gates to everyone at least the opportunity to participate in the New Covenant?
(Calvin had a few thoughts on this but I've never been fond of Calvinist theology)
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )but quite another to claim (as Obama just did) that we are required to do anything to assert, enforce or expand those rights to other than US citizens, or to consult or take instructions from other countries w/r/t how our citizens live their lives. If you want to take the texts you reference seriously, you'll have to acknowledge that.
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )The Truman Doctrine. The Reagan Doctrine. All established US policy based on the notion that we must expand and defend American-style freedoms of other people around the world.
Article 2 Section 2 on treaties can be understood to place constraints of foreign powers on US citizens, insofar as a treaty can be a constraint.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Your interpretation could be used, for example, to argue that we have a moral mandate to intervene in Darfur. I have no problem with that, but I don't think that's what Obama means. The way Obama puts it, our "burdens" as "citizens of the world" (which again, I most emphatically am not) could include as examples allowing other countries and non-American organizations to dictate US energy policy and immigration rules and regulations, including citizenship for illegal aliens already in the country. And that IMO would be unconstitutional, though I don't think the ACLU will take up that particular cause.
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )the idea of applying constitutional principles to other countries began officially in 1823, and has driven US foreign policy ever since. Slippery slopes galore, I grant you.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0708/Obamas_note.html?showall
Nicely said. I couldn't have written it better or more to the point. However, I do recall hearing Bush saying many of those same things, as well.
And that's a lovely thought, as well--that we all fall back on the same sorts of words when we feel ourselves to be in the presence of God.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )If you are right (even as I haven't a clue what you refer to specifically) I do not know whether you believe cribbing from GWB is a good thing or a bad thing.
In candor, within that maelstrom of mixed metaphors and half baked tropes that constitute the rhetoric of GWB, every once in a while he does say something I agree with. The problem is that I have little confidence he understands what it was he just said.
If properly selective, cribbing from GWB isn't a problem for me.
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )whether Christian, Jew or Muslim? Namely: idolatry, adultery, and murder.
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Awesome.
Super Awesome even.
--“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Everyone likes the word, oh yes, but in principle only. But freedom means I don't have to do what you say. Freedom in action annoys certain people, who believe they have all the answers.
It is little different than the Taliban, who also believe in a moral society, based on principles embodied not in freedom but in conformity to received wisdom from the ancients. They, like the modern Conservative, pine for the glory days of a distant past which never was, when men were men, and everyone knew their place. They are not shy about repressing dissent.
How is this, practically speaking, any different than Conservative rhetoric today? What makes the angry ravings of Rush Limbaugh any different than the rantings of Mullah FM in Pakistan? There is no qualitative difference.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )then the rantings of Al Franken (not to mention other comediennes like Maxine Waters, Dennis Kucinich, Dick Durbin and the rest of the coterie of clowns on the left) represent Liberals. As does that guy in San Francisco who just got busted for trafficking in child pornography. Sauce, goose, gander.
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )was the Americans' fault, or any of the other so-called Liberals, just let me know.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )four times as part of a supposed comedy shtick on Air America. (Think her name was Randy Rhodeapple or something.)
Alec Baldwin: "Stone Henry Hyde."
Florida Democratic Party: Rumsfeld should be put against a wall and shot.
I see you and raise you 30 cents. Ante up or fold.
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Speaker Hastert's Land Deal Questioned
...as for Rumsfeld, I'll match that with a Chalabi connection and oh a few thousand dead American troops based on his idiotic policies as SecDef.
As for Bush being shot, why should anyone bother drawing a bead on him when he's so adept at shooting his own feet?
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )...given that O'Reilly is a populist.
And a dork.
--“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )It's not like being a Conservative doesn't have its intellectual and political merits. That's not condescending to anyone... c'mon, any of the Conservatives on TheForvm write better copy than Rush, even I admit as much.
We agree on more than we disagree. I must confess I'm not much on Air America or any of those folks: it's horribly counterproductive, and it's no accident the format isn't working. The Democratic flavor of wingnut has a broadband connection: they head off to their own echo chambers. The Republican wingnut is a whole lot older and less technologically savvy: he's still listening to the old radio in his pickup truck.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )"They,... (The Taliban!) ...like the modern Conservative"
I guess freedom must really annoy you.
--“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )I see little difference between Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann. To be politically sane is to be Poland.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Olbermann's jeremiads point out the simple and eminently provable assertion that Bill O'Reilly got the Malmedy incident wrong, as had Joe McCarthy in years gone by.
Olbermann is a ranter, sure. Lots of his Worst People in the World are truly awful people. The Olbermanns of the world see what's going on, and if they shout "not in our name" to the commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence or the no-bid contracts, calling them fascist, who is to contradict them saying otherwise?
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )This is just 'us against them' name-calling. Same as the 'ditto-heads'. Sports fandom is healthier.
I'm really disappointed you can't be more objective, Blaise.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )See, if we saw ourselves as we were seen, we'd be more circumspect. Others around here say Liberals ought to go on the offensive, striking back with Bigger Sticks when the Rushes of this wicked world start in with this obviously fascist-style crap. Like the flag debate, case in point.
But to use your sports fandom metaphor, when those same people sing "Land of the free and the home of the brave", they have no idea how dangerous and costly is the notion of freedom, nor any concept of bravery. Panicked into the pens of conformity by the ranting and snapping dogs, (who operate on the whistles of the knowing shepherd), most people are sheep.
Oliver Wendell Holmes added a verse to the National Anthem:
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )that while all the things you say are normal in moderation, they very easily descend into irrationality, dogmatism, demagoguery on the part of leaders and narcissism on the part of, well, everyone. The 20th century showed us that we just can't indulge in those feelings too much or disaster follows. There's a big difference between national pride and sports fandom, sport teams generally don't field armies.
--I blame it all on the Internet
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )In moderation. You guys are advocating prohibition.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )I thought I was advocating moderation, and you were talking about binge drinking. There's nothing wrong with inclusive patriotism, designed to bring citizens together. There is a problem with exclusive patriotism, claiming only one's in-group is sufficiently patriotic. It's also a problem when criticism of policy or a particular political group is labeled anti-patriotic. At some point it devolves into fetishism, worshiping the symbols without understanding the underlying ideas.
--I blame it all on the Internet
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )and jingoism.
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )...suspicion of a particular group and bigotry.
Oh wait, that's the definition of bigotry.
Oops my bad.
--“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )not bigotry - definition of.
What's so unreasonable about liking patriotism and disliking jingoism?
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )A fly-in to each would be cool, also.
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
)Since you've made the effort to look at the candidate fairly, I'll try as well. I continue to have problems with McCain's role in campaign finance "reform". McCain-Feingold was supposed to change the face of electoral politics by fundamentally changing how it was funded; it certainly did that, but can anyone say the system works better than it did before, is more transparent, or prevents big money from throwing an election one way or the other? If someone really believes that, they need to look at the percentage of incumbents that are reelected each cycle, and whether an honest man/woman with a reasonable message, but only moderate funding, has even a remote chance of being heard at the national level, let alone being elected.
Politicians need money worse than a junky needs his Mexican Brown, and the easy evasions of the intent behind campaign finance reform were entirely foreseeable. The MoveOn.org founder's statement that they bought and now own the Democratic Party was an overstatement by a naif, but it shows the attitude perfectly.
I also have a problem with McCain's history in the S&L crisis. But that was long enough ago to hope that he learned a lesson from it.
I prefer to look at the flip side of McCain's statement on Obama, that McCain would rather be right on principle than win the Presidential election. There in fact are Dem politicians (Harry Reid comes to mind) that saw more mileage in the perceived political benefits of a loss in Iraq as paramount, I can't say as a fact that Obama was one of them, but I'm not yet convinced that he was not.
You mentioned McCain not exploiting his son's service; I've heard that his body was so damaged by VC torture that he can't raise his hands above his shoulders, and needs his wife to comb his hair. Something he's never mentioned as far as I know.
People chanting the mantra that Obama stands for change need to look at the guy, his advisers and his campaign site (particularly that), and remember that the '06 Congressional elections were supposed to be all about change. Yet here we are; the only significant change is that the Dems have lost the ability to blame their failures on Republicans and Bush. Funny how The Who's simple chant has proven true so often.
The media will dumb down and sound bite everything, no matter how vital. This Obama "rock star tour" and his supposed "call to duty" are the nadir of the sensationalization of the news, but the candidate shares blame for playing along instead of playing it down. The idealistic see and hear a genuine new voice in Obama; the cynics like me see the first candidate who actually is more Madison Avenue than Pennsylvania Avenue. History and literature provide plenty of examples of the man who gets the brass ring he's been lusting for but then has no clue what to do next. This would be a really bad time for that to happen.
The country's at a turning point in the Mideast, on Iran, and most importantly on energy independence versus another eight years as the Saudi's vassal. Each candidate has a plan, and neither seems to be joined at the hip with the Arab kleptocracies, unlike the Bushes and the Clintons. I see hope there, but again I encourage scrutiny of Obama's website with an eye towards practicality and reality on energy versus recycled quasi-environmentalist party pap. The Dems need to recognize the responsibility of the environmental movement for our current energy woes, and recognize their silence now as an admission of guilt, or at least complicity. The environmental vote will be insignificant in November, and an endorsement of and by anti-oil and -coal development enviro interests could even harm Obama. Those people (me included, unfortunately, at least w/r/t contributions) had their chance and they blew it because they were against everything and for nothing in terms of genuine alternatives and responsible resource exploitation.
Anyway, thanks again for a view that hasn't been expressed here before by any liberal as far as I know, at least not this directly and unambiguously.
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
)for acceptable policy compromise, here:
Where the fireworks come into play is comparison of McCain and Obama's "personality"
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Just one point I would try to clarify a bit:
Possibly because however "good" a man John S. McCain III might be, he still, after all is said and done, has fashioned a career for himself as a politician - and like so many other politicians, has had to tie himself into a partisan structure to further said career. And the party machinery he has "inherited" for this Presidential run is the contemporary Republican Party. Not only a - by this point - significantly damaged "brand": but, more importantly, a Party run or steered (for the most part) by a mandarin class of "insiders" for whom the "litanies and shibboleths of Gotcha Politics" aren't a distraction from the political process but the main animating principle of it . Rove-ism written into the OS.
For all his reputation as a "maverick" (overblown, IMO: just the lazy labeling of an intellectually indolent political media), McCain has tied his fortunes to those of the GOP, and is probably unable - even if he were willing - to distance himself much from their core policies and their approaches thereto. And since, fairly or unfairly, the heart of the Republican "message" is seen as having devolved mainly into belligerent jingoism in foreign policy, and heartless economic royalism domestically, McCain is stuck.
Too bad, in a way, because John McCain very well may be the "better man" than the angry, floundering candidate he has turned into. But a lot of good it's done him....
- Login or register to post comments
)in order to have a snowball's chance of winning in November.
McCain knows he is drawing to an inside straight but what choice does he have? Fold?
And this is exactly right, IMHO:
Yep, but perhaps we can now hold John McCain to account for embracing those Rove-ian types who spread the word in 2000 that his adopted multi-racial children were actually the issue of his own dalliances.
As for this:
The Republican base wants to hear what it wants to hear.
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
)Straight party line, Bill. I'm more of a cynic that you sound here; try turning that searchlight on Obama. Set aside all emotion and "change for the sake of change, anything is better, Dems rule!" mindset. Pretend Obama was an independent instead of a likely patsy for the much more experienced pols that represent the Dem Party in national politics.
What do you see if you do that, honestly and party lines aside? A candidate of three dimensions, or only two? A genuine and practical message, or a cartoon balloon bursting with sound bites? Do you think the country can run only on the fuel of idealism (real or perceived) for eight years, or do you think something more might be required? If the latter, what is it, and why do you think Obama has it?
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )organizer roots than anyone else in the race at any time this cycle.
Obama's campaign is empowering local groups to apply those same techniques in their own campaigns unrelated to federal issues. Obamas' campaign (win or lose) shall leave a legacy of better trained community activists in all fifty states.
Obama's plans to prohibit White House staff from taking K Street jobs until after his term in office is over is new and long overdue.
In terms of policy (as policy is defined by Beltway insiders) Obama is a centrist Democrat. Very centrist.
Obama also is NOT an idealist. If anything, the opposite. I went to the University of Chicago and I can say Obama absorbed much from his time there. Whether we are liberal or conservative U of C folk, we are too keen on Ivy League head-in-the-clouds idealists.
Which is why Paul Krugman was apoplectic at Obama's defeat of Hillary Clinton.
= = =
In an ideal world, 2008 is "too soon" for Obama. However, this is not an ideal world. The most needed "change" Obama will bring is to the moribund and craven Democratic Party.
Recall (if you ever saw it) that the video ad for Markos Moulitsas first book depicted him kicking a donkey in teh rear, not an elephant.
Obama is far from perfect, but those weaknesses should be balanced by our working to improve Congress.
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )The University of Chicago perspective is a useful data point for me.
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Not too keen on Ivy League head in the clouds idealists.
Another Chicago point. The conservatives at the U of C rather uniformly have said Obama was always willing to hear them out and that he gave their arguments a great deal of respect.
A poster at Daily Kos (geekesque) said he was in Obama's seminar class on Affirmative Action law and he said that on the very first day Obama told them (as best I recall):
"If you leave this seminar without at least a degree of discomfort at the very notion of affirmative action, I have failed as a teacher."
= = =
The guy had both Obama and Lessig as professors when at the U of C. Sweet!
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )is how many fresh looks from how many people will he need in the next fifteen weeks? I'm pretty sure that just being better than Bush will not win the election. To a large extent, he's running against the McCain of 2000, and it doesn't appear to be working for him. He's starting to sound like the Bob Dole of 1996 - politically outmaneuvered and getting angry about it. I don't think that approach will work for him, and I'm not sure if his campaign has time to retool yet again.
--I blame it all on the Internet
- Login or register to post comments
)But I would caution that his candidacy for the Presidency is a long way from being dead just yet. Bearing that in mind then, I don't see anything wrong with partisans on the left returning fire under the same rules the McCain campaign seeks to employ. If for no other reason than to keep the news media in line and prevent them doing to Obama what they did to Gore. Just so long as Obama and the campaign keep largely to the high road.
From my perspective Obama as a candidate has grown in stature as the campaign progresses, while McCain has shrunk. He's definitely not McCain the reformer of 2000, while many of the people surrounding him are indeed the same people or cut from the same mean cloth as those who helped elect Bush and subsequently staffed his administration.
Time to clean house and while McCain wouldn't be Bush, at best he would only be capable of merely marking time until someone better came along.
--GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.
- Login or register to post comments
)They're in a 24 hour conga line following every twist and turn Obama makes on his Iraq junket, drooling in idiotic glee, wrapping the guy like a Japanese gift and tying a huge presidential bow around him. And I'm sure you know all about what the NY Times did to McCain's request for equal time after the Obama editorial was printed there in 20 point type with a gilded border.
The only risk Obama has from the media is that its biggest paper mache talking heads will all die before the election of heart failure due to an excess of orgasmic bliss over the guy's looks, voice, rock star persona and three-point shots.
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Like you said, rock star. You see those pictures with Petraus? If it had a comic book frame, I'd be expecting Obama to jump out of the helicopter, land on a car of mujahedeen and start beating the tar out of them.
That's the media. It's what they respond to and it's not ideological, see Reagan, R. Or the Captain Codpiece display by Bush circa 2003.
The fact that Obama can do so while advocating policies that are more sophisticated than "cut taxes!" "blow 'em up!" "ship 'em out!" "dey took our jawbs!".. that's why I'm actually excited to vote for him.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )An opportunity presents itself for tomsyl to post the McCain Op-Ed in full and interleave McCain's text with his own annotations whereby we can all become better informed as to McCain's foreign policy genius.
= = =
As an Obama supporter I would have much preferred that the NY Times publish the Op-Ed. Having read it, McCain is getting far more mileage out of the "NYT is biased!" meme than he would have from the publication of the piece.
Maybe he and the NY Times Board cut a deal on the rejection. ;-)
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )Surely you get that.
--Rust never sleeps.
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )is scarcely prudent citizenship, now is it?
--. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .
- Login or register to post comments
| parent )The former is simply an enjoyable side effect of the latter.
--- Login or register to post comments
| parent )