As a libertarian, it will at least be entertaining to watch the left squirm while defending Hillary Clinton’s “right” to employ the same executive powers and engage in the same foreign policy blunders they now argue that President Bush has superceded his authority in claiming. And it’ll be equally fun to watch the right cry foul when President Hillary claims the same powers they have so vigorously fought to claim for President Bush. The problem, of course, is that entertaining as all that might be, an increasingly imperial presidency isn’t good for our republic.
I had only seen the video of Giuliani in drag with Donald Trump before. This is. . . disturbing, adding fascist overtones that hardly need to be emphasized.
EDIT: Are there any better quality versions of this picture out there?
Because the truth is, if you laid the resumes of the five leading candidates for the job – Don Mattingly, Joe Girardi, Tony La Russa, Bobby Valentine and Torre – on a table and removed the names, one would jump out at you. The one with the 12 straight playoff appearances, 10 division titles and four world championships over the past 12 seasons. That would be Torre’s. And if that’s not good enough to keep his job, what ever will be?
For those talking about paying attention to the election next year after it starts, the New Hampshire primary is moving towards December.
If history at its best can be seen as the recollection and recreation of past events unvarnished by propaganda, emotion, and the focus of the present; of the best and worst, and most often, the muddled in between of human events, human endeavors, and natural forces, then James Fallows’ take on Al Gore seems to be on the right track. Fallows writes:
Gore can be pompous, lecturing, pedantic, and all the rest. But [just as] in retrospect the criticisms of [Martin Luther King, Jr.] look very small, and — without equating the stature of the two men — I think something similar will be true regarding Gore. Like him or not, he has turned his efforts to an important cause, under historical and political circumstances that would have tempted many people to drown themselves in drink or move to Bhutan.
For the moment, let us imagine the role of some historian a generation hence. The major biographies of our age have already been written and re-written by our peers, our children and children’s children. The comic-tragedy of Dubya that ended in the tragedy of a war; the comic-tragedy of Bill Clinton, who wasted his presidency on trivialities; the dark force of Cheney whose sudden personality shift between 2000 and 2002 still remains a mystery, but whose insider skill and cachet with the president led him to amass more power than most presidents; and of course, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Rudy Guiliani, Hillary Clinton, Colin Powell, Tommy Franks, David Petreaus, Nancy Pelosi, and John McCain. All these men and women who exercised power from 1998 to 2008 will have been written about. But someone will remember to write about a man who almost was president; who was the most powerful vice president in history (only to be dwarfed in power by his successor); who, after losing his lifelong ambition in the most excruciating fashion possible, slowly, gradually, gained a second chance at his life and dedicated it to stopping what he saw as the world’s most pressing challenge.
The Inches We Need [digg-reddit-me]
Bobby Kennedy once said that:
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
Al Gore proved in 2000 that he did not have the first greatness that Kennedy spoke of; greatness is only separated from failure by luck, providence, or destiny. As with any time I try to understand the meaning of something significant, I am reduced to invoking sport. In a ballgame, the difference between greatness and a fleeting memory is only a matter of inches. Who would remember Carlton Fisk’s walk off home run – which I was not even alive for, but vividly recall – if it hadn’t been for a few inches. In the photo, you can see him wishing, pushing the ball, already far beyond his control, fair with his hands. And in the miracle of that moment, Fisk’s home run became a legend, one of the most dramatic moments in sports history.
Many imbue success with a kind of moral quality, seeing in a successful person more will-power, more determination, more grit, more perseverance, more discipline. They do not acknowledge the controlling factor of luck that time and again makes these moral qualities superfluous. Carlton Fisk’s moment of triumph, carrying his team to victory, made him immortal and great. He changed the course of history and allowed the Boston fans one more day to hope. But a million minute factors contributed to this moment and any one could have rendered it forgettable, typical, a failure. There is no moral quality to success. A swing a quarter of a second sooner or later, a strong breeze, an imperfection in the baseball, anything that made the ball move a few inches to the left would have made this moment instantly forgettable. History would gone on, oblivious. These seconds, these moments, these triumphs that barely were: they are what separate those with the greatness to bend history from those who try their best.Al Gore’s swing in 2000 was a bit too early, a bit too late, and for him, things certainly did not end fairly.
Al Pacino in the single moment that redeemed the decent picture Any Given Sunday gave a soliloquy:
Pacino captures the beauty of sports and of history, properly understood. A battle of wills, a competition in which every inch matters because winning and losing are only inches apart. What Pacino ignores, what every actor in history ignores is that even the most outstanding success is largely the result of luck. That is why you can find the morality of sports not in success but in the process, in the way the game is played: the discipline needed to attain the skills needed to compete; the determination and perseverance in the face of adversity; the will-power and focus; the camaraderie and community of a team; the dignity in the face of setbacks and successes; the respect for one’s opponent. A great ball player is one who has been given the opportunity and through luck, skill, and character is able to take advantage of it. A good ball player is one who has skill and character. You can study the great men and women who have changed history and the many men and women who have failed. There are those who choose to do great but terrible things – who, once attaining power, destroy societies, murder, lie, steal. There are those who choose to do great things for others – but who in their great ambition, they always destroy something. In studying these men and women you will find no golden formula for success; the only necessary condition is to be willing to take advantage of an opportunity that presents itself, but even that is only occasionally sufficient.
Al Gore failed, but he put himself out there, to win or lose, to compete. He paid his dues over the years, accumulating a wealth of experience. He faced failures and successes, again and again. He ran a good but flawed campaign and lost in a mess of butterfly ballots and pregnant chads.
Al Gore, Failure
If we were to judge Al Gore by the standards of an earlier era, he would look better. In an era before television and the 24/7 media cycle he so hates began to dominate our culture and politics, Al Gore would be more readily seen as the man of substance, conviction, and morals he is. He has shown good judgment throughout his career, both personally and politically. Maybe he demonstrated poor judgment in letting a political consultant dress him in earth tones, and by kissing Tipper a bit too enthusiastically for everyone to see. As important as those seemed at the time, today, these lapses in judgment seem paltry compared to the worst of Bush, for example, calling his Secretary of Defense “RumStud”, unnecessary wars, etcetera and so on.
But most important is what Al Gore did after his loss. He was a man. He was a good man. He did not give up on making a difference in the world. He fought for what he believed in. He maintained his good sense despite his colossal failure that was a lifetime in the making. He has done more than any other living person to put climate change back on the global policy agenda, and all of this from a man who failed when history most needed him, who could not bend history even a bit at his most opportune time. Al Gore failed to become a great man; what Gore proved though, was that he was something better and more rare – a good man who, being passed over by history, still chose to make what difference he could.
As an historian of the future, we can look at Al Gore as a good man on whom God or fate chose not to bestow the blessing or curse of greatness. But he was – and is – a good man.
History as a Morality Tale
As a concluding thought, I would turn to Reinhold Niebuhr:
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.
A note on why this was written: I was challenged by a redditor about Senator Obama’s vote for the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The text of Obama’s speech on the floor of the Senate is here. Thanks to my challenger for the link. The actual back and forth is here. I’ve edited it a bit for posting.
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Obama’s vote in favor of the Military Commissions Act does disturb me greatly. More so than anything else about Obama as a candidate and future president.
However, I believe (and at this point it can only be a belief) that Barack Obama as president would restore habeas corpus and put an end to torture as a means of interrogation. He says so in his stump speech, but I do not blindly trust the words of those campaigning for public office.
After a cursory search of the web, I have not found a defense of Senator Obama’s vote. And given the two foundational principles – habeas corpus and the the responsibility of a government to treat those within it’s power humanely – that this bill in one way or another attacks (by suspending habeas rights for non-citizens with controversy over whether it applies to citizens, and by allowing testimony gained by means of torture)–it is difficult to see what a good man of principle may have been thinking. Even more, the MCA put into law the staggeringly flawed policy that is the Bush administration’s response to detaining possible terrorists.
But I do not merely admire Senator Obama because he is principled; just as important: he is both ambitious and pragmatic. Many principled men and women have broken their selves upon the system. I firmly believe it is possible to be both highly principled, and willing to compromise those principles at the right time, in order to preserve them.
As Lincoln did – suspending habeas corpus without calling on Congress; declaring slavery an evil, if anything is evil, yet not calling for its extermination.
I do not know what Obama was thinking when he cast that vote.
He may have been thinking that to be one of the very few voices speaking without a chance of success at this time might marginalize him for the 2008 election.
He may have been thinking that it was better to pass a flawed bill and begin to re-assert a weak role for Congress in these important matters than to dither about and have the president flout the ruling of the Supreme Court. Because if the president had just ignored the Court’s ruling, that may have damaged the balance of power more than this weak bill.
He may have been making political calculations about his future, or about the long-term interests of the country, or both.
But my point is this: as disturbing as it may be, it is conceivable that a good and principled man or woman could vote for such a flawed law as this.
Centrism is not a dirty word. It is not our salvation either. I do not believe however Obama is trying to be a centrist. Rather, it seems to me he is trying to find the best solutions, words, and actions in a flawed world. Unlike Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, he is willing to be pragmatic in order to achieve what he wants. As the Clintons are; as Lincoln, JFK, and MLK were.
For me, the difference is that I trust that Obama has principles. Every position seems to contain both pragmatic and principled stands.
When I see Clinton, I only see pragmatism. She seems to believe that elections are games to get power; and with her power, she will do certain good things. Her focus is on the ends almost exclusively.
Obama seems to believe that elections are about convincing the country that his principles are right where possible, and compromising otherwise. Power is about making the changes he has brought the country around to with his election and using his position in office.
Kucinich seems to believe that elections are only won by the corrupt, and power is guaranteed to corrupt. It does not seem to me that Kucinich wants to win.
Oscar Wilde once said: “It takes great courage to see the world in all its tainted glory and still to love it.” We are in a fallen world. I believe the institutions of our democracy are in grave danger. And I cannot countenance a leader who is unwilling to compromise in order to win.
Lincoln won his election on a platform of keeping slavery. And he meant it, it seems. Yet given the perspective of history, I would not have chosen another man to lead our country in that time – no matter how pure or how principled. Slavery was evil. Yet Lincoln’s decision, flawed as it may be, compromising his basic principles and the principles of our nation, still stands the test of time. It stands because he was able to bring the country to where he felt it should be.
Much of the media has now pronounced Obama’s campaign all but hopeless and anointed Hillary the Democratic presidential candidate. Why? A national poll showing Hillary with a 20-point lead over all contenders and an Iowa poll showing her, for the first time, taking a slim lead in Iowa. I am not sure Obama can win, but for me, this race seems far from over. Even Michael Crowley’s piece in TNR with the hope-filled title: “Hope sinks” gave me some reasons to believe there’s more to come. Here’s why:
Crowley in his piece used the same trope that the Hillary campaign has been handing out about Obama’s “new politics” – her campaign has tried to say Obama is caught in a catch-22, unable to criticize her or play politics without losing his mantle as the candidate of change, as the candidate of the new politics. Based on Obama’s campaign team, based on what I have gleaned of Obama’s personality from the various profiles, based on the fact that Obama was a Chicago politician, it’s obvious he’s ready and willing to play hardball. I frankly don’t see the contradiction being the politics of hope and political hardball. To say that politics is more than a game where we pick our positions based on carefully polled tactical decisions does not indicate you won’t criticize your opponents. It is one thing to say that politics has to be about more than character assassination, and another to be unwilling to take on your opponent’s positions. Conflating the two is nothing more than a tactic to confuse the issues, or an indication that a reporter is confused.
Of course, Obama has fed into this by refusing to mention Hillary by name. To me this seems like a tactical decision rather than a matter of principle. The time will come, and it will come soon when he will start criticizing her by name – apparently starting with the New Hampshire editorial excerpted below. He will call on her by name in a speech soon, after he begins to gain some points in the polls, at least in Iowa. And it will be news and will help build his momentum. For the past six months, I have been hearing about the fears from the Obama campaign that they will peak too early. That’s why I give some credence to reports such as this one that indicate that they plan on coming from behind just before the Iowa caucuses.
Crowley reports that Obama has the team and the organization in Iowa to succeed, and that if he is able to get some younger voters to the caucuses, he might succeed. Of course the youth vote always seems to disappear in elections. But with the strongest Democratic organization in Iowa and a veteran political team, this seems very important.
Another reason to think all is not over: the moment Hillary was anointed the presidential candidate, she made two mistakes. First, she voted for the Lieberman-Kyl bill that seems eerily reminiscent of the 2003 bill to authorize military force with Iraq. And then she accused a questioner of being planted by an opposition campaign when he asked a legitimate questions about her support for the Liberman-Kyl bill. This prompted the TNR blog headline “HAS HILLARY LET OBAMA BACK INTO THE RACE?”. Obama took the opening with an article in a New Hampshire paper:
I strongly differ with Sen. Hillary Clinton, who was the only Democratic presidential candidate to support this reckless amendment. We do need to tighten sanctions on the Iranian regime, particularly on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, which sponsors terrorism far beyond Iran’s borders. But this must be done separately from any unnecessary saber-rattling about checking Iranian influence with our “military presence in Iraq.” Above all, it must be done through tough and direct diplomacy with Iran, which I have supported, and which Sen. Clinton has called “naive and irresponsible.” Sen. Clinton says she was merely voting for more diplomacy, not war with Iran. If this has a familiar ring, it should. [my emphasis]
And now we also find that the Clintons are beginning to do what they are so good at doing: alienating their potential allies by attacking anyone who disagrees with them. The Hillary camp is apparently put out by the quality of Obama’s foreign policy team and has asked Mr. Documents-in-my-Socks Sandy Berger to be an enforcer to let anyone supporting Obama know that they will have no place in a Clinton administration. It’s called cheap; and it’s called hardball. And Obama will hit back.
Clintonian hubris, an Obama strategy to put the pressure on Clinton late, with Iowa in a statistical dead heat, and a ton of other primaries following hard-upon Iowa. It seems to me that Obama has a good chance of winning even if he doesn’t hit his stride. And if he does, I feel this may be a short race.
I’m not sure why Britain’s Telegraph or Matt Drudge consider this news, but Ted Sorenson, President John F. Kennedy’s speech writer and one of his closest aides, has declared Obama is the true heir to JFK’s legacy and a better candidate or president than Hillary or Bill Clinton, including this Obama campaign talking point:
“Judgment is the single most important criterion for selecting a president. At the time of the [1962] Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy’s powers of judgment were tested as no president has ever been tested. Fortunately for all of us, he really came up with the right answers. He was 45. Obama’s 46 so he’s an old geezer.”
The main reason I find the newsworthiness of this surprising is that Ted Sorenson made this explicit in an editorial for The New Republic [subscription required, as the article is in archives] in July, concluding:
[digg-reddit-me]Perhaps most tellingly, both [JFK and Obama] preached (and personified) the politics of hope in contrast to the politics of fear, which characterized Republican speeches during their respective eras. In 1960 and earlier, cynics and pessimists accepted the ultimate inevitability of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, much as today they assume a fruitless and unending war against terrorism. Hope trumped fear in 1960, and I have no doubt that it will again in 2008.
Although President Kennedy became the breakthrough president on civil rights, health care, and other liberal issues, he was not the most liberal candidate for the nomination in 1960. His emphasis on the importance of ethics, moral courage, and a multilateral foreign policy made him–like Obama–hard to pigeonhole with a single ideological label. His insistence that the United States “must do better” in every sphere of activity, including its cold war competition with the Soviet Union, caused some historians to mistakenly recall that he “ran to the right” of Richard Nixon on national security issues, forgetting his emphasis on negotiations and peaceful solutions.
JFK’s establishment opponents– probably not unlike Obama’s–did not understand Kennedy’s appeal. “Find out his secret,” LBJ instructed one of his aides sent to spy on the Kennedy camp, “his strategy, his weaknesses, his comings and goings.” Ultimately, Kennedy was both nominated and elected, not by secretly outspending or out-gimmicking his opponents but by outworking and out-thinking them, especially by attracting young volunteers and first-time voters. Most of Kennedy’s opponents, like Obama’s, were fellow senators–Johnson, Humphrey, and Symington–who initially dismissed him as neither a powerhouse on the Senate floor nor a member of their inner circle. That mattered not to the voters; nor does it today.
Above all, after eight years out of power and two bitter defeats, Democrats in 1960, like today, wanted a winner–and Kennedy, despite his supposed handicaps, was a winner. On civil rights, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the race to the moon, and other issues, President Kennedy succeeded by demonstrating the same courage, imagination, compassion, judgment, and ability to lead and unite a troubled country that he had shown during his presidential campaign. I believe Obama will do the same.
What seemed to me more newsworthy about the Telegraph articlethan the headline, and the bulk of the article which made this point:
The Kennedy legacy and the aura of Camelot have been powerful but largely unspoken themes underpinning the campaign of Mr Obama, another charismatic Harvard alumnus heralding a new era in politics.
Rather, Sorenson had some harsh words for each of the Clintons–however, nowhere near as harsh as the Republican candidate or Mike Gravel are and will be. He made all the main liberal criticisms of Hillary and Bill, saying that they had and will:
squandered talent and opportunity;
continued of politics as usual – “a continuation of the Clinton-Bush 20 years”;
triangulated positions and compromised on core liberal values;
compromised the honor of the presidency – “I don’t think that it was the noblest time for the White House when the Lincoln bedroom was rented out to donors and pardons were being issued to some truly dreadful people”;
and of course, that Hillary will lose to the Republican candidate because too many people don’t like her and she only appeals to people’s intellects.
That’s new and news to me. And it follows a trend of many of those in the Establishment who do not believe another term of the Clintons is the answer. Certainly an improvement, but far from the answer.
Sorry for the extra-light blogging these past few days. I’m a bit under the weather and have no stomach for deep thoughts to intermingle my metaphors. In lieu of actual thoughts on a page, here are some thoughts by others:
The New York Daily News’ Rudy Guiliani Jeopardy: The Answer is Always 9/11 (I actually have been preparing something like this collecting quotes, etcetera, but they beat me to it. I’ll supplement this with a few more quotes soon.);
As we remember the beginnings of Western civilization on this continent, we almost must look to our legacy:
“Tell the world why you’re proud of America. Tell them when the Star-Spangled Banner starts, Americans get to their feet, Hispanics, Irish, Italians, Central Europeans, East Europeans, Jews, Muslims, white, Asian, black, those who go back to the early settlers and those whose English is the same as some New York cab driver’s I’ve dealt with … but whose sons and daughters could run for this Congress.
Tell them why Americans, one and all, stand upright and respectful. Not because some state official told them to, but because whatever race, color, class or creed they are, being American means being free. That’s why they’re proud.
As Britain knows, all predominant power seems for a time invincible, but, in fact, it is transient.
unvarnished by propaganda, emotion, and the focus of the present; of the best and worst, and most often, the muddled in between of human events, human endeavors, and natural forces, then 
greatness is only separated from failure by luck, providence, or destiny. As with any time I try to understand the meaning of something significant, I am reduced to invoking sport. In a ballgame, the difference between greatness and a fleeting memory is only a matter of inches. Who would remember Carlton Fisk’s walk off home run – which I was not even alive for, but vividly recall – if it hadn’t been for a few inches. In the photo, you can see him wishing, pushing the ball, already far beyond his control, fair with his hands. And in the miracle of that moment, Fisk’s home run became a legend, one of the most dramatic moments in sports history.
says so in his stump speech, but I do not blindly trust the words of those campaigning for public office.
Much of the media has now pronounced Obama’s campaign all but hopeless and anointed Hillary the Democratic presidential candidate. Why? A national poll showing Hillary with a 20-point lead over all contenders and an Iowa poll showing her, for the first time, taking a slim lead in Iowa. I am not sure Obama can win, but for me, this race seems far from over. Even 
I’m not sure why Britain’s Telegraph or Matt Drudge consider this news, but Ted Sorenson, President John F. Kennedy’s speech writer and one of his closest aides, has declared Obama is the