Category: Obama

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Domestic issues Election 2008 Obama Politics

Edwards v. Obama: The closing arguments

In the past two weeks, a fight has broken out in the Democratic primaries between John Edwards and Barack Obama (with Paul Krugman and Hillary Clinton playing supporting roles for Edwards) over the best way to effect change.  An excerpt from his closing argument in Iowa:

We need a president who will take these powers on and fight to get you your voice back, and your government back. We need a president who is going to fight every day to make sure that all Americans can find good jobs, save for the future, and be guaranteed health care and retirement security. We need a president who is going to lift up the middle class…

None of this is going to be easy. I hear all these candidates talking about how we’re going to bring about the big, bold change that America needs. And I hear some people saying that they think we can sit at a table with drug companies, oil companies and insurance companies, and they will give their power away. That is a fantasy. We have a fight in front of us. We have a fight for the future of this country. And the change we need will not happen easily. We need someone who is going to step into that arena on your behalf, someone who is ready for that fight. [my italics]

Obviously, Edwards has been emphasizing this time around that he is a fighter. He makes clear that he thinks change comes from fighting – that change must be pushed through and forced upon those who would oppose it. He believes the moment for force and fighting is now – in a rhetorical sense at least. The model he looks to is Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Obama’s closing pitch strikes a very different note:

It’s change that won’t just come from more anger at Washington or turning up the heat on Republicans. There’s no shortage of anger and bluster and bitter partisanship out there. We don’t need more heat. We need more light. I’ve learned in my life that you can stand firm in your principles while still reaching out to those who might not always agree with you. And although the Republican operatives in Washington might not be interested in hearing what we have to say, I think Republican and independent voters outside of Washington are. That’s the once-in-a-generation opportunity we have in this election.

For the first time in a long time, we have the chance to build a new majority of not just Democrats, but Independents and Republicans who’ve lost faith in their Washington leaders but want to believe again – who desperately want something new…

n the end, the argument we are having between the candidates in the last seven days is not just about the meaning of change. It’s about the meaning of hope. Some of my opponents appear scornful of the word; they think it speaks of naivete, passivity, and wishful thinking.

But that’s not what hope is. Hope is not blind optimism. It’s not ignoring the enormity of the task before us or the roadblocks that stand in our path. Yes, the lobbyists will fight us. Yes, the Republican attack dogs will go after us in the general election. Yes, the problems of poverty and climate change and failing schools will resist easy repair. I know – I’ve been on the streets, I’ve been in the courts. I’ve watched legislation die because the powerful held sway and good intentions weren’t fortified by political will, and I’ve watched a nation get mislead into war because no one had the judgment or the courage to ask the hard questions before we sent our troops to fight.

But I also know this. I know that hope has been the guiding force behind the most improbable changes this country has ever made. In the face of tyranny, it’s what led a band of colonists to rise up against an Empire. In the face of slavery, it’s what fueled the resistance of the slave and the abolitionist, and what allowed a President to chart a treacherous course to ensure that the nation would not continue half slave and half free. In the face of war and Depression, it’s what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation. In the face of oppression, it’s what led young men and women to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through the streets of Selma and Montgomery for freedom’s cause. That’s the power of hope – to imagine, and then work for, what had seemed impossible before.

That’s the change we seek. And that’s the change you can stand for in seven days.

It’s a longer excerpt because Obama’s idea is more complex, more subtle. It is to Edwards’s credit that he is able to take complex ideas and boil them down into a simple formula – and it is how he won so many court cases. Obama prefers to make his audience rise to the rhetoric, to make them work to understand him. And it has been a surprisingly effective formula so far.

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Election 2008 Obama Politics

Frank Rich v. Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman v. Frank Rich

[digg-reddit-me]I admit that I’m biased. I used to think that Frank Rich’s columns – in the period before he went behind the Time Select wall – were hysterical and often shrill. Though I generally would agree with the fundamental point he was making, I would find his style distasteful. I preferred Krugman’s polemicism to Rich’s because, while Krugman could also often be shrill, Krugman seemed to take strategic positions that I could appreciate while Rich was attempting to get at the cultural relevance of the matters at hand.

Each columnist positioned himself differently in the debate. Paul Krugman considered himself a gladiator in the arena fighting to advance his cause. His column was not supposed to be read as a means of understanding the news, but as a means of making the strongest arguments against Republican policies. Frank Rich was trying to analyze the news and the cultural moment and to inform his readers while writing partisan screeds against the current administration. ((My objection here is not to a columnist writing to inform also offered his opinion, but to the tone of Rich’s opinions.)) In the end, this is why I found Krugman’s partisanship more palatable than Krugman’s.

But times have changed. Now Krugman reserves almost as much bile for fellow Democrat Barack Obama as for the Republicans; and Frank Rich, while continuing to blast Republicans, has focused more on the analysis and moderated his tone. ((He has also written a number of columns very supportive of Obama.))

In the end, the disagreements between the two colleagues is not about a particular candidate but about each person’s approach to politics. Krugman is a partisan, through and through. He believes political gain comes from sticking with your base, attacking your enemies, destroying their positions, and forcing your way through. His approach is the perfect approach for a political minority trying to protect its interests, and it mirrors the Republican approach to governance since 1994 and especially during Bush’s time as president. No matter how many votes they received, the Republicans continued to govern as a minority party – purging dissidents within their ranks, refusing to compromise, obfuscating their true agenda, focusing more on talking points than on policy.  A strong majority party – such as the Democrats between 1932 and 1972 or the Republicans between 1980 and 2000 has a “big tent”, pulling in moderates and independents. A strong party focuses less on the weaknesses of the opposition and more on the strengths of its own positions, feeling confident that a majority of the country supports their honest positions. A strong party (because it already holds significant power and because it’s members, having won, are now faced with running matters) is more focused on governance than a minority party, which is focused on stopping what it opposes.  A strong majority party’s positions become more nuanced.  There is a place for the type of partisanship that Krugman venerates – and Krugman demonstrated the value of such partisanship from Bush’s election in 2000 until 2006. Krugman was the voice of opposition.

Frank Rich struggled during this time – because he could not seem to quite reconcile his position as an analyst and his outrage at the conduct of the current administration. He could see the cultural and political trends going against him, and tried to balance his opposition to the zeitgeist of his time with an analysis of the way things were headed.

But today, Krugman seems intent on ensuring that the Democratic party stays a minority party – eschewing the “big tent” politics that creates lasting political movements in favor of small-time, talking-point wins.

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Election 2008 Obama Politics

Huckabee v. Obama

Andrew Sullivan seems to be looking forward to a Huckabee-Obama match-up:

And that is why part of me, I confess, wants Huckabee to win. So he can lose. So the GOP can lose – as spectacularly and humiliatingly as possible. If we are to rid conservatism of this theocratic cancer, we need to start over. Maybe it has to get worse before it can get better.

Rich Lowry seems to believe Huckabee’s nomination would mean much the same thing as Sullivan does; but he isn’t looking forward to it.

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Election 2008 Obama Political Philosophy Politics

Why I cannot support Ron Paul

Ron Paul

[digg-reddit-me]John Derbyshire of the National Review came out in support of Ron Paul today – and he makes a persuasive case. The core of his argument is that a typical candidate will not be able to fix what is wrong:

Yet, more and more, I think we are heading for (or perhaps are in) some kind of systemic crisis, one that not even the meanest s.o.b. could do much about. A systemic crisis needs a systemic solution, and only Paul offers that, with his return to constitutional fundamentals…

If, however, you think that much of the underbrush that has grown up around our national institutions this past 40 years needs to by pulled up by the roots and burned, before it chokes the life out of our Republic, then Paul’s your man.

This is the only argument that could persuade me to support a Ron Paul, or even a Dennis Kucinich. ((I don’t think anything could persuade me to support Mike Gravel who strikes me as a loon.)) I too believe, along with Derbyshire, we are in the midst of a systematic crisis that has been developing since the presidency of Harry Truman at latest. I also believe that George W. Bush has accelerated this crisis immeasurably – to Bush’s credit. If it were not for the boundless arrogance and incompetence Bush has displayed repeatedly throughout his term, we wouldn’t have the same opportunity for reform that we have now. The many presidents who have made relatively responsible use of their power distracted the majority of Americans from the inherent systematic problems, and from the extra-constitutionality of the executive’s growing power. George W. Bush put these issues back on the agenda.

And it is the reality of George W. Bush, more than anything, that is fueling the candidacy of Ron Paul.

Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are idealists rather than pragmatists. They have big ideas that inspire and they are uncompromising in their goals. Their dreams for America are pristine – and untouched by either politics or reality. ((I know I exaggerate, and Kucinich certainly has made compromises. But they still leave his agenda far from possible.)) But there is a simple reason that I cannot support a Ron Paul or a Dennis Kucinich – even if I believed that either one perfectly expressed where we need to end up as a nation, and even if I believed either Paul or Kucinich would be able to accomplish their goals and overcome the tremendous obstacles in their way. The simple reason is that radical ((Meaning extreme.)) change is rarely permanent and rarely good.

We are still dealing with the backlash from our first ideologically radical president, George W. Bush. By changing so much so fast Bush has created a backlash against everything he has done. This backlash looks a lot like Ron Paul – the opposite of Bush on many, many issues. If someone was able to merge the persons of Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, they would be able to create an almost perfect anti-Bush who opposed the current president on every issue and whose every inclination tended the opposite way of the current cowboy in chief. But this is not enough – in fact, this politics of negation is precisely the opposite of what will solve America’s problems.

What America needs today is a president who will focus on restoring the processes and institutions that make America safe and that preserve liberty and the American way of life. We need a president who will be pragmatic and gradually win the support of the people for the long-term process that it will be to restore the Constitution and the system of checks and balances. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich do not seem to have a long-term strategy for their goals, even if their principles are correct – rather they claim they are just going to accomplish their objectives. ((I know Kucinich has detailed plans, and I’m sure that Ron Paul has thought about these issues as well; but they both seem to believe that the major impediment to radical change is their own election. Governing is not so easy of a proposition, especially with entrenched interests defending each and every aspect of the system.) I don’t think the world works this way. More, I believe, if either of these men were faced with having to implement their agendas, they would begin hedging so fast and so furiously, they would make Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton look principled. I don’t mean this as a slight to either man. I believe both are intelligent enough to realize how difficult it would be to dismantle the IRS or create a single-payer health care system; and when faced with the prospect of having to accomplish these goals, they would naturally hedge their promises if not their principles. Politics is the art of compromise – and a practice where ideals are hard to reconcile with power.

As I have said before: this is why I support Barack Obama. Because I believe he is principled, yet pragmatic. I see in him both the arrogance and ambition needed to run for president, and the humility to see that the tasks before him are far greater than he can accomplish by himself. He is a political figure who transcends traditional political boundaries. Most important, he believes that process is paramount and is willing to base his campaign on bringing people together to fix the many broken processes that form the bedrock of a robust democracy.

Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are likely good men with admirable goals; and it is their unflinching idealism which attracts so many. But it is precisely this which would cause them to fail and to create a backlash of the same sort that Bush has created with his policies.

Perhaps this isn’t the most inspiring campaign slogan, but I think it’s appropriate:

Barack Obama: All the change we can handle, and judgment we can trust.

Political courage is not only measured by the worthiness of one’s ideals, but by the sum of one’s actions.

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Election 2008 Foreign Policy Giuliani Law Libertarianism Obama Politics Post 9/11 Generation The War on Terrorism

Why I write this blog

It’s been about two months since I’ve started this blog. I started it knowing only that I wanted to write, and that I already had a dozen ideas for posts or articles. There were many times as well when I would read this or that article and be frustrated at the inaccuracies, and I wanted to correct them, or add to them, and I thought could advance the collective conversation.

This blog has in many ways been more successful than I anticipated – with over 125,000 pageviews and over 80,000 absolute unique visitors in this short time. I’ve been writing only in my free time here and there – a few minutes before lunch at work, after I get home at night, and on weekends.

Recently, I have been trying to determine what exactly it is that I have to offer, and therefore what this blog should be about. My most popular link so far was this funny cat video I came across on a Saturday night and embedded; next was this bit of electoral analysis which has proved remarkably prescient, especially in its title “The Beginning of the End of Hillary 2008”; then comes this uneven piece on the rhetoric used in the debate on what to do about terrorists and terrorism. As you go further down the list, there is one piece of pop-political-philosophy discussing the differences between two libertarian-minded political trends; a mention of Chris Rock’s comments introducing Obama with related video; the contrasting stories of the interrogation of two Al Qaeda related prisoners in the aftermath of September 11; and a video of a cheerleader getting trampled by a football team. The posts cover a wide range – from clear fluff to horse-race analysis of the presidential campaigns to more serious discussions of issues.

What is it that I have to offer?

Given my position – having a full-time job and blogging on the side – I cannot do what I would most want to do, in-depth first person research on every topic. ((I am trying to do this though, and to do it more – sending emails, letters, and in other ways trying to contact the subjects of my pieces; and also trying to get more information in this way.)) But I think there are other things I have to offer. I am a voracious consumer of media – especially about news and politics. I listen to many unedited candidate and policy-maker speeches. ((Through C-Span, the Constitution Center, and the Council of Foreign Relations primarily.)) I care deeply about a number of issues and follow them closely in the news including the issue of liberty in America today, the fate of Pakistan, the attempt to create a practical and moral foreign policy, and the construction of a strategy to wage a smart and effective War on Terror. I read opinions from a broad political spectrum, and take them seriously. Or at least most of them. I have read books by Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Barry Goldwater, as well as books by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, and I regularly read both conservative and liberal blogs and magazines, as well as some radicals that are not so easily classified. ((I believe there is a third way in politics – but that neither Bill Clinton nor his wife have found it, relying instead on cynical triangulation and the papering over of large differences with clever rhetoric.)) I believe I have generally sound judgment and a sense of the political winds, as well as a unique and insightful views on current events.

So what I have to offer is this: a funny video every Saturday; analysis of where the politics is headed in the near and slightly-less-near future; and serious policy discussion (leavened with some humor).

What this blog is about

There is one issue which above all shapes my thoughts today and is the impetus behind this blog: the precariousness of the American experiment. I am convinced that America’s status as a liberal ((In the classical sense.)) democratic republic is in existential danger. This danger is not only from terrorism, but from our government’s response to terrorism. I have come to believe that the Bush administration has undermined and subverted many of the institutions and ideas that have kept executive power in check since our founding: the media, the Supreme Court, the independence of executive agencies, the military, the Congress, and the rule of law. At the same time, the Bush administration has posited monarchical powers for the presidency, they have been relatively reticent in using them. ((Only relative to what they have asserted is their power. For example, the Bush administration has asserted that it does not need Congressional approval to go to war, but it still asked for it.)) For example, while Bush has asserted the authority to declare any person a terrorist and enemy combatant and hold them secretly and indefinitely without trial or charge and torture them for information, and given such a broad definition of terrorism as to include anyone who even criticizes him, he does not seem to have used this power to the extent he has asserted he can. This has led many people to see the rhetoric of those raising the alarm about these issues as unhinged from the reality of their lives. But because Bush has asserted such powers and undermined every check on his power, we are closer than ever to a police state.

Let me be clear – I think in every practical sense, America today is far from a police state. But with the theoretical foundations laid down by this administration, and the subversion of any check on executive power, we seem to be only one 9/11 away from a fall from authentic liberal democracy. It is this concern that is the prism which affects how I see every issue: it is why I became a Barack Obama supporter; why I am afraid of Rudy Giuliani; why I am so opposed to torture; why I am so concerned about our strategy in the War on Terrorism; why I started this blog; and why I will continue to write and seek other ways to affect America’s fate.

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Election 2008 Obama Politics

The moment is now…

Oprah introducing Barack a few hours ago:

“There are those who say that Barack Obama should wait his turn. There are those who say that he should take a gradual approach to presidential leadership, but none of us is God,” Ms. Winfrey said. “We don’t know what the future holds, so we must respond to the pressures and the fortunes of history when the moment strikes. And Iowa, I believe that moment is now.”

With that, Mr. Obama took the stage.

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Election 2008 Obama Politics

Hillary v. Barack, Third Grade Edition

[digg-reddit-me]I’m now realizing some people might not have been following this as closely as I have.

In mid-November, Obama unveiled this indirect attack on Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush:

“I’m not in this race to fulfill some long-held plan or because it was owed to me…”

Hillary responded in a number of ways – suggesting she had really bad dirt on Obama that she was choosing not to leak ((It turned out to be a land deal that

Finally, earlier this week, Hillary released a press release citing an essay Obama wrote as a kindegardener, another essay from third grade, and a quote from one of his law school acquaintances, all suggesting that Obama was planning to run.  The section on third grade read as follows:

In third grade, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled ‘I Want To Be a President.’ His third grade teacher: Fermina Katarina Sinaga “asked her class to write an essay titled ‘My dream: What I want to be in the future.’ Senator Obama wrote ‘I want to be a President,’ she said.” [The Los Angeles Times, 3/15/07]

After being ridiculed about the matter for a day, Clinton’s top pollster and adviser, Mark Penn stated that the press release was just a joke.  No one seems to have quite believed that, but that’s the current state of affairs.

Brian Duffy of the Des Moines Register had this response to Hillary’s inane use of Obama’s third grade essay:

Hillary and Barack in Third Grade
via Andrew Sullivan

Forthcoming in the next few days, my take on “Libertarian Liberalism” following up the lib•er•tar•ian: Ron Paul libertarians vs. Daily Kos libertarians piece that got some attention two weeks ago. (Also, the reason for my slow blogging recently.)

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Election 2008 Obama Politics

With good judgment, little else matters. Without it, nothing else matters.

[digg-reddit-me]The Wall Street Journal had an editorial this past Thursday by Warren Bennis, a professor of business at the University of Southern California and Noel Tichy, a professor of business at the University of Michigan and co-authors of Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls which was published earlier this month. In exploring the theme of experience versus judgment, they came down on the side of judgment (link behind subscriber firewall):

Where do we put our money? First, let us cite Ted Sorenson, one of John F. Kennedy’s closest advisers and speechwriters. When asked about his former boss’s judgment, Mr. Sorenson responded, “I cannot emphasize how important that elusive quality is; far more important than organization, structure, procedures and machinery. These are all important, yes, but nothing compared to judgment.”

After a five-year study of leadership covering virtually all sectors of American life, we came to the inescapable conclusion that judgment regularly trumps experience. Our central finding is that judgment is the core, the nucleus of exemplary leadership. With good judgment, little else matters. Without it, nothing else matters…

Judgment isn’t quite an unnatural act, but it also doesn’t come naturally…

Yes, Mrs. Clinton, experience is not without value. But judgment, fed by solid character, should determine the choice of our next president. [my emphasis]

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Election 2008 Humor New York City Obama Politics

Chris Rock: “You’d be real embarrassed” if Obama Won and You Supported “That White Lady”

[digg-reddit-me]Barack Obama was in New York City last night and unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it as I did his Washington Square Park event in September. By most accounts, the event was a huge success as Obama continued to use the new stump speech he premiered at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Iowa earlier this month to great acclaim. Over 1,500 were packed into the Apollo Theater including Dr. Cornell West, Chris Rock, and the Reverend Al Sharpton, who is still on the fence about the Clinton-Obama match-up. Barack has consistently had strong showings in the New York City area and as happened at the two other campaign events I attended in New York, Obama attracted overflow crowds.

Chris Rock introduced Barack to the audience just a few blocks away from Bill Clinton’s Harlem office, slipping in a reference to “that white lady” who happens to be Bill’s wife, and explaining how George Bush has actually met our expectations as a nation:


From Newsday:

“I want to stand up for those who still hunger for opportunity, who still thirst for justice. I don’t want to wake up four years from now to find that we missed the opportunity. We cannot wait.”

At this point, it is hard to deny the momentum is building for Obama as many take a second look at Clinton and a first serious look at the race.

A note on Chris Rock‘s performance: Evidently not at his best last night. The line he delivered fell flat, but I think this phrasing, stolen from FoxNews is an improvement.

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Election 2008 New York City Obama Politics

Obama meeting with Mayor Bloomberg?

[digg-reddit-me]Here Matt Drudge goes again – a headline suggestive of something, but no one knows what. It’s just enough to get everyone talking. And chances are this is true – not because everything Drudge reports is true, but because, as this doesn’t fit into any Republican or Clinton agenda that I can think of, he has little reason to run it if it weren’t.

I can’t think of a reason Obama would be meeting with Bloomberg now – with the race so tight in Iowa and every moment precious – unless Bloomberg reached out in some way and wanted to discuss an endorsement. This is only my speculation, but nothing else seems to fit.

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