During this year's Democratic Presidential primary, Sen. Hillary Clinton has said that she has learned from some of her past mistakes in dealing with Congress, and will use that experience as President to help her pass many of her proposed legislative reforms.
Unfortunately, recent events clearly demonstrate that Clinton has either learned nothing from those experiences, or has learned - and simply does not care. Past behavior is generally an indicator of future performance, and Clinton is certainly no exception.
For those who are new to this storyline, let's take a trip back in time. The year was 1993. President Bill Clinton was still on his honeymoon with the electorate. He started a task force on health care, with the goal of reforming the health care system, and appointed his wife to lead it.
A few eyebrows were raised at the idea of a First Lady getting this actively involved in policy making. However, it wasn't the first time nepotism had made an appearance in Washington (the most famous example probably being Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy).
Hillary Clinton obviously had the legal experience and smarts for the job. Plus, she'd chaired a task force to improve education in Arkansas while her husband was that state's governor. By all accounts, that task force did well. So it was very reasonable for the new President to try and repeat that success on a national level.
Hillary would be playing with a deck heavily stacked in her favor. Not only did she have the direct endorsement of the President, but Democrats controlled 57% of the Senate and 59% of the House. Her favorability ratings were around 60%.
Of course, the health care lobby would be working overtime against any proposal to change the system. However, with the clear working majorities Democrats had in Congress, the time was more than ripe for health care reform.
So, what did Hillary do? She took her task force private, closing meetings and even refusing any Congressional input. Rather than courting Republicans, she wouldn't even talk to them. She threatened to "demonize" Congressional Democrats who had the temerity to question parts of her plan. She wound up agitating Democratic leaders like Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
By 1994, the Clinton plan for health care reform was being panned by both sides of the aisle, and it never even got enough support for a floor vote. The plan died quietly in September of that year. This debacle was a large part of the reason Democrats suffered massive losses in the 1994 mid-term Congressional elections, relegating Democrats to the minority party for 12 years.
In a revealing NPR article, entitled "Health Care Initiative a Learning Moment for Clinton", Carl Bernstein, Leon Panetta and David Gergen all describe Hillary Clinton's intractability and absolute refusal to compromise during the "Hillarycare" effort. Bernstein, in the same article, says that Clinton has grown as a leader, and now has shown the ability to accept some form of deviation from her proposals in the interest of getting some improvements passed. Panetta disagrees, saying Clinton has what he calls the "George Bush problem" of stubborn opposition. Gergen says he's not sure if Clinton has changed as a national leader.
Remember, past behavior is a reliable indicator of future performance. Unfortunately, two events that she has highlighted in this campaign clearly demonstrate that Sen. Clinton has not learned anything from her previous trips to Capitol Hill.
Clinton has repeatedly attacked her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, for voting in favor of the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Her opposition to the bill was primarily due to the tax breaks energy companies received in the bill. Obama's response was that the bill wound up raising taxes on energy companies, even with the tax breaks; that the bill did include provisions for alternative-energy and efficiency research; and that President Bush clearly stated he would not have signed a tougher bill.
Clinton has recently championed the idea of a gas tax holiday from Memorial Day to Labor Day, with a temporary windfall tax on oil companies to make up the revenue lost from the tax. She has also used this as a campaign issue against Obama, who opposes the holiday. Obama's opposition is based on his experience with such a holiday he once supported. Illinois had a gas tax holiday in 2000, while he was a state senator. He saw that the savings was simply sucked up by oil companies and gas station owners, and never got to the consumer.
Clinton has even gone so far as to challenge all the members of Congress, channeling Bush 43 by saying, "either you're with us or you're against us." This may not have been the best message to send to undeclared Democratic superdelegates, whose support she needs in much greater numbers than Obama to win the nomination. Colorado's Rep. Mark Udall, one such superdelegate, has already responded in withering terms.
It is worth noting that Clinton has yet to produce a single economist who is not on her campaign's payroll that thinks this is a good idea. On the other hand, a group of 150 prominent economists of all political leanings - including three Nobel Prize winners - have said that the holiday "is a bad idea". Even fellow New Yorkers such as Gov. David Paterson (a Clinton superdelegate) and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have come out against the holiday
Of course, one would expect either Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN, and Clinton superdelegate) or Gov. Mike Easley (D-NC, and Clinton superdelegate) to speak favorably of this idea. Yet, they've been thunderously silent on this proposal. One can only guess why.
Hillary Clinton circa 2008 isn't much different than Hillary Clinton circa 1993. While many legislators, including Obama, have the sense that legislative improvement can be gained by degrees through negotiation and compromise, Clinton still won't accept any proposals that don't completely match her own requirements.
This is precisely why Clinton's candidacy must not succeed. She's got the intelligence and fortitude to be President. What she does not have, has never had, and will never had is a basic understanding of how to accept any idea that isn't entirely her own.
Hillary Clinton's history shows that she can't bargain with a politically favorable Congress, and she's unwilling to bargain with a politically unfavorable Congress. This is a recipe for massive government gridlock - not change. In the words of George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it." Please, let's not watch this particular re-run.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Jellybean Barry?
One would not think Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan would have much in common, other than both having lived in Illinois at some point in their lives. However, if the Illinois senator does become the 44th President of the United States, much of his success will have been due to emulating the 40th President of the United States.
Certainly, their politics, personal stories, career paths and eras in which they came of age are quite divergent. However, in their pragmatic approaches to politics, and their ability to forge personal bonds with legislators who are the political polar opposites, one can easily discern some striking similarities.
You can see the first similarity in their Presidential campaigns. Reagan had a simple rule: Thou shalt not hurt a member of thine own party. Now, as George H. W. Bush can attest, that didn’t mean you couldn’t attack a fellow Republican (or Democrat) on the issues. However, that didn’t extend to gutter politics, such as George W. Bush’s smear campaign on John McCain in 2000.
This approach was a big part of why Reagan enjoyed such sweeping general-election success. He didn’t have to clean mud from his shoes after the GOP conventions in 1980 and 1984 – and this relatively clean image really helped his generally positive and hopeful outlook that his campaigns offered the voting populace.
It’s obvious that Obama is trying to walk the same path. He certainly hasn’t made much of an issue of Hillary Clinton’s personal peccadilloes. He’s certainly taken more shots than Reagan did, but by not jumping into the same sewers as his attackers, he’s got the same benefit of relative cleanliness.
Their positive stumping points are also very similar. Like Reagan, Obama offers a rosy view of America’s future, with more substance than his detractors are willing to admit. Obviously, their implementations are very different. But the approach is very similar.
Obama has been described as an “empty suit”, “Manchurian Candidate”, and, courtesy of the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, “Obambi”. Reagan endured the same types of criticisms, even though he had executive experience by the time he ran for President. One need only recall the 1980 and 1992 Republican primaries for proof. In 1980, the man eventually known as Bush 41 hung the classic “voodoo economics” tag on Reagan’s economic proposals. In 1992, H. Ross Perot dropped some political karma on then-President Bush by, of all things, coining a famously derisive phrase to describe Reaganomics, which Bush had adopted: “Trickle-down don’t really trickle down.”
Obama and Reagan saw the same priority in fixing Social Security. Both also have a very similar funding element: a temporary raise in the capital-gains tax, and an adjustment on the Social Security payroll tax.
Both have shown a clear, demonstrated ability to work with the other party to get their legislation passed. Reagan was famous for panning Congress to the press, who ate up Jellybean Ronnie’s tough talk like cake. However, remember that Congress spent much of Reagan’s eight years under a heavy Democratic influence. Despite this, Reagan managed to get almost all his proposals through. He did this by employing a personal touch not seen since the days of Lyndon Johnson. He knew how to cajole, how to plead, and how to reason with legislators. Even Democrat Tip O’Neill, then the Speaker of the House, grudgingly praised Reagan’s ability to glad-hand his way to one legislative victory after another.
In the U.S. Senate alone, Obama co-authored the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (known in Beltway shorthand as “Coburn-Obama”), the Lugar-Obama non-proliferation bill to reduce conventional WMDs, and another Lugar-Obama bill, the American Fuels Act. These major pieces of legislation were authored with Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Dick Lugar (R-IN), two of the most conservative Senators. For a “far left liberal”, Obama sure managed to get some polar opposites to work with him. These important pieces of legislation show Obama’s negotiating skills.
Probably the most striking similarity between the two politicians, though, is their ability to turn negative criticism into positive public feeling. Reagan spent a good deal of his Presidency fighting off scandals – including “Iranamok”, which exploded and stayed hot for months, and included several Reagan “inaccuracies”. A lesser politician would have been completely disgraced. Reagan, though, somehow managed to glide through it all relatively unscathed, thus earning another moniker: “Teflon Ron”.
Obama has already dealt with a raft of potential hot-button issues. His racial makeup, his middle name, the unfortunate similarities between “Obama” and “Osama”, his religious beliefs (polling still shows that about a quarter of white Americans who disapprove of Obama still think he’s a Muslim), Jeremiah Wright, Antoin Rezko, William Ayers, “Bitter-gate”, etc.
Many Democrats have been sunk for far less than the perceived weight of those issues. (Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry leap to mind.) However, Obama’s poll numbers seem to have improved after many of these stories broke. And if the controversies have hurt him with the party elite, the superdelegate movement definitely doesn’t reflect it, as Obama is now less than 25 supers behind Clinton, who started out the primary season with over 200 endorsements.
Obama has a Teflon coating wrapped in a Kevlar bodysuit. He’ll need all of his armor in the general election, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood right-wing 527s.
Of course, the two men aren’t really alike. If they ran against each other, they’d have big differences in policy and personal stories. Both men ran for President under strikingly similar national circumstances: burgeoning international crisis, depressed economic circumstances, and stark rises in fuel costs.
Ronald Reagan’s real secret to political success was to offer a hopeful agenda that made Americans believe positive change was not only possible, but even inevitable, if he got elected. If Barack Obama does take the oath of office next January, the concepts of hope and change will have found their greatest advocate since Reagan himself.
Certainly, their politics, personal stories, career paths and eras in which they came of age are quite divergent. However, in their pragmatic approaches to politics, and their ability to forge personal bonds with legislators who are the political polar opposites, one can easily discern some striking similarities.
You can see the first similarity in their Presidential campaigns. Reagan had a simple rule: Thou shalt not hurt a member of thine own party. Now, as George H. W. Bush can attest, that didn’t mean you couldn’t attack a fellow Republican (or Democrat) on the issues. However, that didn’t extend to gutter politics, such as George W. Bush’s smear campaign on John McCain in 2000.
This approach was a big part of why Reagan enjoyed such sweeping general-election success. He didn’t have to clean mud from his shoes after the GOP conventions in 1980 and 1984 – and this relatively clean image really helped his generally positive and hopeful outlook that his campaigns offered the voting populace.
It’s obvious that Obama is trying to walk the same path. He certainly hasn’t made much of an issue of Hillary Clinton’s personal peccadilloes. He’s certainly taken more shots than Reagan did, but by not jumping into the same sewers as his attackers, he’s got the same benefit of relative cleanliness.
Their positive stumping points are also very similar. Like Reagan, Obama offers a rosy view of America’s future, with more substance than his detractors are willing to admit. Obviously, their implementations are very different. But the approach is very similar.
Obama has been described as an “empty suit”, “Manchurian Candidate”, and, courtesy of the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd, “Obambi”. Reagan endured the same types of criticisms, even though he had executive experience by the time he ran for President. One need only recall the 1980 and 1992 Republican primaries for proof. In 1980, the man eventually known as Bush 41 hung the classic “voodoo economics” tag on Reagan’s economic proposals. In 1992, H. Ross Perot dropped some political karma on then-President Bush by, of all things, coining a famously derisive phrase to describe Reaganomics, which Bush had adopted: “Trickle-down don’t really trickle down.”
Obama and Reagan saw the same priority in fixing Social Security. Both also have a very similar funding element: a temporary raise in the capital-gains tax, and an adjustment on the Social Security payroll tax.
Both have shown a clear, demonstrated ability to work with the other party to get their legislation passed. Reagan was famous for panning Congress to the press, who ate up Jellybean Ronnie’s tough talk like cake. However, remember that Congress spent much of Reagan’s eight years under a heavy Democratic influence. Despite this, Reagan managed to get almost all his proposals through. He did this by employing a personal touch not seen since the days of Lyndon Johnson. He knew how to cajole, how to plead, and how to reason with legislators. Even Democrat Tip O’Neill, then the Speaker of the House, grudgingly praised Reagan’s ability to glad-hand his way to one legislative victory after another.
In the U.S. Senate alone, Obama co-authored the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (known in Beltway shorthand as “Coburn-Obama”), the Lugar-Obama non-proliferation bill to reduce conventional WMDs, and another Lugar-Obama bill, the American Fuels Act. These major pieces of legislation were authored with Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Dick Lugar (R-IN), two of the most conservative Senators. For a “far left liberal”, Obama sure managed to get some polar opposites to work with him. These important pieces of legislation show Obama’s negotiating skills.
Probably the most striking similarity between the two politicians, though, is their ability to turn negative criticism into positive public feeling. Reagan spent a good deal of his Presidency fighting off scandals – including “Iranamok”, which exploded and stayed hot for months, and included several Reagan “inaccuracies”. A lesser politician would have been completely disgraced. Reagan, though, somehow managed to glide through it all relatively unscathed, thus earning another moniker: “Teflon Ron”.
Obama has already dealt with a raft of potential hot-button issues. His racial makeup, his middle name, the unfortunate similarities between “Obama” and “Osama”, his religious beliefs (polling still shows that about a quarter of white Americans who disapprove of Obama still think he’s a Muslim), Jeremiah Wright, Antoin Rezko, William Ayers, “Bitter-gate”, etc.
Many Democrats have been sunk for far less than the perceived weight of those issues. (Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry leap to mind.) However, Obama’s poll numbers seem to have improved after many of these stories broke. And if the controversies have hurt him with the party elite, the superdelegate movement definitely doesn’t reflect it, as Obama is now less than 25 supers behind Clinton, who started out the primary season with over 200 endorsements.
Obama has a Teflon coating wrapped in a Kevlar bodysuit. He’ll need all of his armor in the general election, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood right-wing 527s.
Of course, the two men aren’t really alike. If they ran against each other, they’d have big differences in policy and personal stories. Both men ran for President under strikingly similar national circumstances: burgeoning international crisis, depressed economic circumstances, and stark rises in fuel costs.
Ronald Reagan’s real secret to political success was to offer a hopeful agenda that made Americans believe positive change was not only possible, but even inevitable, if he got elected. If Barack Obama does take the oath of office next January, the concepts of hope and change will have found their greatest advocate since Reagan himself.
Dumb and Dumberer: When Charlie met George
There was a debate last night at Philadelphia's Constitution Center. Unfortunately, the people who should have been in attendance at the end were the city's vice detectives. That way, at least the fraud that was perpetrated by Charles Gibson, George Stephanopoulos and ABC could be fully investigated.
Yes, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have debated 20 times before. However, it had been almost two months since the Cleveland debate, and as we all know, much has transpired since then.
What I expected was some difficult questions for both Senators. For Obama, I thought he'd have to answer questions on "Bitter-gate", as well as some of his personal associations with people like Jeremiah Wright, Antoin Rezko and William Ayers. Personally, I don't think those are major issues, but they're definitely fair game for a Presidential election. They're also part of the real talking points the Clinton campaign will use in persuading superdelegates to move in her direction.
For Clinton, I thought she'd have to talk about Tuzla, Colombia, and the Peter Paul trial. Again, I am not convinced these are major issues, but they're also fair game for a Presidential election. And Clinton hasn't been made to answer any serious questions about possible conflicts of interest in a third Clinton Administration or the possibility of the next POTUS being found liable in an eight-figure civil suit.
I thought the time limits were a good idea. At least that way, once the tabloid stuff was done, we could move on to talk about such insignificant matters as the Iraq occupation, the possibility of military action in Afghanistan or Pakistan, how to handle Iran, the economy, the mortgage crisis, and the decline of American educational performance.
Unfortunately, three horrible things occured to make this, without question, the worst of the 21 Democratic debates. We'll look at them as questions I would ask to ABC News executives, if I ever got the chance.
(1) What happened to balance? Obama was asked some tough questions. Ayers, again, is fair game. I thought he was correct to bring up the fact that Ayers was doing his work when Obama was still in primary school, several thousand miles away. The point about Tom Coburn is legitimate, though perhaps not politically correct. He might have done better to throw in the fact that he's successfully co-sponsored major legislation with Coburn.
However, Clinton was asked exactly one question that touched on her own controversy - and it didn't even come from the moderators. She gave an answer that, while stilted, finally gave some public declaration of remorse for her Bosnia prevarications. She should have avoided the passing reference to sleep deprivation, but again, at least she owned up to the embarrassment. Then, immediately after her answer, Gibson went at Obama with a different question, allowing no chance for a response on Tuzla. Obama probably wouldn't have gone after Clinton, but it's worth noting that Clinton was given specific opportunities to rebut every one of Obama's responses in the first 40 minutes.
I was stunned that there were no questions on Colombia. Clinton's got three major people involved with her campaign who either have been or are actively involved with lobbying efforts in favor of a free-trade agreement with that nation - a concept that Clinton has actively opposed. This seems to be an issue that is worth examining more fully. The Paul case is also a big issue. How many Presidential candidates have ever been defendants in a civil suit while running for office? A judge thought enough of Paul's case to reinstate Sen. Clinton as a defendant. This alone is newsworthy, yet she's not been asked a single MSM question on this.
(2) Where did these questions come from? Gibson's justification for the questions on flag pins and patriotism is that "they keep coming up." That might be the single most inane line of reasoning I've ever heard him utter. Clinton doesn't wear a flag pin. For that matter, John McCain doesn't wear one either. If it's a non-issue for them, it's a non-issue for Obama. The debate spent several minutes on this manufactured issue. Along with the other inanities, this left 30-60 seconds per candidate at the end to discuss such trivialities as how to keep gas prices under $4 per gallon.
Stephanopoulos, not to be outdone, got in on the idiocy too. What possible import could Jeremiah Wright's patriotism have on the election issues? Never mind the fact that the man volunteered to become a US Marine, and personally tended to President Lyndon Johnson, or that he was one a select group of clergy invited to the White House in 1998 to pray for Bill Clinton at the dawn of the Lewinsky scandal. Wipe those arguments out, and it's still a patently goofy question.
(3) Did anyone bother to consider the moderators? After his putrid performance last night, Gibson should never be allowed to moderate another debate again for as long as he lives. But at least one can understand why he would have been selected. Stephanopoulos, though, should never have been selected. His professional and political associations alone should have disqualified him. His clownish performance should, like Gibson's, be a permanent disqualifier for future moderator gigs. ABC royally blew this part of the debate. They'd have been better off with Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
So, who made better points? That appears to be a draw. I suspect most undecided voters will give Obama a pass for the first 40 minutes. Although I imagine we may see a few more Ayers stories in the media, this will not be an issue again until the Republican attack machine tries to drum it up in the general election, should Obama be the nominee. Clinton seemed to be at her best when pressing issues, and made her main points of electability and detailed policy proposals. However, Obama counterpunched effectively - stopping her on Ayers when he pointed out that Bill Clinton had pardoned two Weather Underground activists. She also walked into a stiff left jab when he ended the Social Security debate by pointing out that the 1983 Reagan commission, which Clinton had just praised, did, in fact, raise the payroll tax to beef up funding - which Clinton had just opposed. The debate was heading for a break before that exchange started, and that was probably fortuitous for Clinton.
Who won? Overall, Clinton will probably come out of the debate less the worse for wear - if for no other reason than the first 40 minutes set the tone for the evening. Neither candidate made any new points or brought up anything new, which probably helps Obama more than Clinton. She didn't get her big break tonight, but did show more humor and personality than she usually does.
I thought the only potential Obama stumble came when Gibson asked a follow-up question about what appears to be Obama's handwriting on a 1996 survey that stated, among other things, his position on gun control at the time. Obama's response was to say that his handwriting wasn't on that survey. However, there's a Politico article by Kenneth Vogel that includes a link to the PDF version of the survey, and the handwriting does look like Obama's. This is potentially another "gotcha" moment. But the debate wasn't a big poll mover, most likely.
Who lost? Without question, the "Dumb and Dumber" moderators - and, by extension, their network. Because of them, what should have been an interesting, mostly issue-focused debate was instead the greatest waste of bandwidth since George W. Bush's last press conference. I just hope the detectives bring latex gloves and galoshes to the crime scene, because there's probably some serious excrement around the moderators' table.
Yes, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have debated 20 times before. However, it had been almost two months since the Cleveland debate, and as we all know, much has transpired since then.
What I expected was some difficult questions for both Senators. For Obama, I thought he'd have to answer questions on "Bitter-gate", as well as some of his personal associations with people like Jeremiah Wright, Antoin Rezko and William Ayers. Personally, I don't think those are major issues, but they're definitely fair game for a Presidential election. They're also part of the real talking points the Clinton campaign will use in persuading superdelegates to move in her direction.
For Clinton, I thought she'd have to talk about Tuzla, Colombia, and the Peter Paul trial. Again, I am not convinced these are major issues, but they're also fair game for a Presidential election. And Clinton hasn't been made to answer any serious questions about possible conflicts of interest in a third Clinton Administration or the possibility of the next POTUS being found liable in an eight-figure civil suit.
I thought the time limits were a good idea. At least that way, once the tabloid stuff was done, we could move on to talk about such insignificant matters as the Iraq occupation, the possibility of military action in Afghanistan or Pakistan, how to handle Iran, the economy, the mortgage crisis, and the decline of American educational performance.
Unfortunately, three horrible things occured to make this, without question, the worst of the 21 Democratic debates. We'll look at them as questions I would ask to ABC News executives, if I ever got the chance.
(1) What happened to balance? Obama was asked some tough questions. Ayers, again, is fair game. I thought he was correct to bring up the fact that Ayers was doing his work when Obama was still in primary school, several thousand miles away. The point about Tom Coburn is legitimate, though perhaps not politically correct. He might have done better to throw in the fact that he's successfully co-sponsored major legislation with Coburn.
However, Clinton was asked exactly one question that touched on her own controversy - and it didn't even come from the moderators. She gave an answer that, while stilted, finally gave some public declaration of remorse for her Bosnia prevarications. She should have avoided the passing reference to sleep deprivation, but again, at least she owned up to the embarrassment. Then, immediately after her answer, Gibson went at Obama with a different question, allowing no chance for a response on Tuzla. Obama probably wouldn't have gone after Clinton, but it's worth noting that Clinton was given specific opportunities to rebut every one of Obama's responses in the first 40 minutes.
I was stunned that there were no questions on Colombia. Clinton's got three major people involved with her campaign who either have been or are actively involved with lobbying efforts in favor of a free-trade agreement with that nation - a concept that Clinton has actively opposed. This seems to be an issue that is worth examining more fully. The Paul case is also a big issue. How many Presidential candidates have ever been defendants in a civil suit while running for office? A judge thought enough of Paul's case to reinstate Sen. Clinton as a defendant. This alone is newsworthy, yet she's not been asked a single MSM question on this.
(2) Where did these questions come from? Gibson's justification for the questions on flag pins and patriotism is that "they keep coming up." That might be the single most inane line of reasoning I've ever heard him utter. Clinton doesn't wear a flag pin. For that matter, John McCain doesn't wear one either. If it's a non-issue for them, it's a non-issue for Obama. The debate spent several minutes on this manufactured issue. Along with the other inanities, this left 30-60 seconds per candidate at the end to discuss such trivialities as how to keep gas prices under $4 per gallon.
Stephanopoulos, not to be outdone, got in on the idiocy too. What possible import could Jeremiah Wright's patriotism have on the election issues? Never mind the fact that the man volunteered to become a US Marine, and personally tended to President Lyndon Johnson, or that he was one a select group of clergy invited to the White House in 1998 to pray for Bill Clinton at the dawn of the Lewinsky scandal. Wipe those arguments out, and it's still a patently goofy question.
(3) Did anyone bother to consider the moderators? After his putrid performance last night, Gibson should never be allowed to moderate another debate again for as long as he lives. But at least one can understand why he would have been selected. Stephanopoulos, though, should never have been selected. His professional and political associations alone should have disqualified him. His clownish performance should, like Gibson's, be a permanent disqualifier for future moderator gigs. ABC royally blew this part of the debate. They'd have been better off with Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
So, who made better points? That appears to be a draw. I suspect most undecided voters will give Obama a pass for the first 40 minutes. Although I imagine we may see a few more Ayers stories in the media, this will not be an issue again until the Republican attack machine tries to drum it up in the general election, should Obama be the nominee. Clinton seemed to be at her best when pressing issues, and made her main points of electability and detailed policy proposals. However, Obama counterpunched effectively - stopping her on Ayers when he pointed out that Bill Clinton had pardoned two Weather Underground activists. She also walked into a stiff left jab when he ended the Social Security debate by pointing out that the 1983 Reagan commission, which Clinton had just praised, did, in fact, raise the payroll tax to beef up funding - which Clinton had just opposed. The debate was heading for a break before that exchange started, and that was probably fortuitous for Clinton.
Who won? Overall, Clinton will probably come out of the debate less the worse for wear - if for no other reason than the first 40 minutes set the tone for the evening. Neither candidate made any new points or brought up anything new, which probably helps Obama more than Clinton. She didn't get her big break tonight, but did show more humor and personality than she usually does.
I thought the only potential Obama stumble came when Gibson asked a follow-up question about what appears to be Obama's handwriting on a 1996 survey that stated, among other things, his position on gun control at the time. Obama's response was to say that his handwriting wasn't on that survey. However, there's a Politico article by Kenneth Vogel that includes a link to the PDF version of the survey, and the handwriting does look like Obama's. This is potentially another "gotcha" moment. But the debate wasn't a big poll mover, most likely.
Who lost? Without question, the "Dumb and Dumber" moderators - and, by extension, their network. Because of them, what should have been an interesting, mostly issue-focused debate was instead the greatest waste of bandwidth since George W. Bush's last press conference. I just hope the detectives bring latex gloves and galoshes to the crime scene, because there's probably some serious excrement around the moderators' table.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Hillary As Rocky?
There's a lot of nameless irritation about Sen. Hillary Clinton. Some of it is in her campaigning, some of it is with her almost Sybil-like message changing, some of it is with her almost uncanny ability to "spin" or "misspeak" so frequently.
However, my own recent irritation with Clinton revolves around her particularly contradictory and insulting attempts to portray herself as the underdog for the Democratic nomination.
She was asked yesterday by ABC News how she planned to win the nomination. Her response: "Why is this question directed at me?" She went on to complain that the question should also be asked of Sen. Barack Obama, as he can't win without superdelegates either. Of course, the de rigeur "double standard" complaint was rehashed shortly thereafter.
Of course, there is no double standard here. When there's a political race, the candidate who is losing is asked how they plan to win. John Edwards, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were all asked this question prior to dropping out of the primaries. On the other hand, you wouldn't ask the leading candidate how he plans to win...because he's already winning.
A few days ago, Clinton was speaking to the AFL-CIO in Philadelphia. There, she compared herself with fictional boxing legend Rocky Balboa. (This implies that Obama would be - Apollo Creed? Maybe Clubber Lang, as a Chicago foil for the Italian Stallion, would be her chosen projection for Obama instead?)
Now, I love underdogs. I find them encouraging and uplifting. As a lifelong, dyed-in-the-red St. Louis Cardinals fan, I rejoiced when they thumped the "experts" and the Detroit Tigers to win the 2006 World Series. As a current Pittsburgh area resident, I loved seeing the sixth-seeded Steelers win three road games and Super Bowl XL. My movie collection includes "Rudy", "Hoosiers", "Pride", "Stand and Deliver", "Lean on Me" and "Invincible". I also have "Rocky", "Rocky II", "Rocky III" and "Rocky Balboa". I've even run the steps of the eastern entrance to the Philadelphia Art Museum. (My lungs were very unhappy with me for several minutes afterward.)
You, Senator Clinton, are no Rocky Balboa. Trying to claim that you're an underdog is disingenuous - at best.
A reasonable definition of “underdog” is, someone who STARTS OUT way behind and faces serious shortcomings in skill against prohibitively formidable front-running opposition. With a little luck, a lot of support from those closest to him, and a remarkable ability to focus on the goal despite tremendous obstacles, the underdog becomes top dog in a closely-fought climactic contest.
The Clinton spin machine would like you to see Hillary Clinton as a brilliant, tough, put-upon victim of (choose at least one: sexism, misogyny, anti-feminism) who is scrapping just to stay in the race and fight for every American's vote.
“She’s being victimized! She’s being railroaded by this young punk with no brain, big ears and a big grin! Don’t let the sun go down on her! She’s the only one who can run the country!”
I agree that she's brilliant and tough. The rest of it? Pure bunk.
Hillary Clinton started out with enormous advantages. She got virtually all positive media attention when she announced her candidacy. She enjoyed tremendous name recognition. Compared to Obama, she is the consummate Washington insider, with the connections to match. She was running at 40% in national polls for the Democratic nomination last year - with EIGHT other candidates in the field. She has a two-term President spouse who has thrown all his political resources and chits behind her candidacy. She had 200 superdelegate endorsements before a single vote was ever cast in the Iowa caucuses. She had a $120 million war chest ready to go.
Now, all she has is a $5 million IOU and a small - but difficult to close - delegate deficit.
If Clinton loses this race, it has nothing to do with her gender. It has to do with her badly misreading the electorate and badly mismanaging her campaign. Why would one run as a candidate of “experience” in a year where incumbents in general are likely to take a beating? Why would one claim “35 years of experience” that would have to have started the moment she matriculated from Yale Law?
The abject failure to push a correct and consistent message can't be foisted off on Bill Clinton, Mark Penn, Patti Solis Doyle or anyone else. If she can mismanage a $180 million campaign this badly, I shudder to think what she’ll do with a few trillion.
Rocky Balboa? I think not. Try the 2007 New England Patriots. Bill Belichick must have a "19-0" hoodie he can lend to Clinton.
However, my own recent irritation with Clinton revolves around her particularly contradictory and insulting attempts to portray herself as the underdog for the Democratic nomination.
She was asked yesterday by ABC News how she planned to win the nomination. Her response: "Why is this question directed at me?" She went on to complain that the question should also be asked of Sen. Barack Obama, as he can't win without superdelegates either. Of course, the de rigeur "double standard" complaint was rehashed shortly thereafter.
Of course, there is no double standard here. When there's a political race, the candidate who is losing is asked how they plan to win. John Edwards, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were all asked this question prior to dropping out of the primaries. On the other hand, you wouldn't ask the leading candidate how he plans to win...because he's already winning.
A few days ago, Clinton was speaking to the AFL-CIO in Philadelphia. There, she compared herself with fictional boxing legend Rocky Balboa. (This implies that Obama would be - Apollo Creed? Maybe Clubber Lang, as a Chicago foil for the Italian Stallion, would be her chosen projection for Obama instead?)
Now, I love underdogs. I find them encouraging and uplifting. As a lifelong, dyed-in-the-red St. Louis Cardinals fan, I rejoiced when they thumped the "experts" and the Detroit Tigers to win the 2006 World Series. As a current Pittsburgh area resident, I loved seeing the sixth-seeded Steelers win three road games and Super Bowl XL. My movie collection includes "Rudy", "Hoosiers", "Pride", "Stand and Deliver", "Lean on Me" and "Invincible". I also have "Rocky", "Rocky II", "Rocky III" and "Rocky Balboa". I've even run the steps of the eastern entrance to the Philadelphia Art Museum. (My lungs were very unhappy with me for several minutes afterward.)
You, Senator Clinton, are no Rocky Balboa. Trying to claim that you're an underdog is disingenuous - at best.
A reasonable definition of “underdog” is, someone who STARTS OUT way behind and faces serious shortcomings in skill against prohibitively formidable front-running opposition. With a little luck, a lot of support from those closest to him, and a remarkable ability to focus on the goal despite tremendous obstacles, the underdog becomes top dog in a closely-fought climactic contest.
The Clinton spin machine would like you to see Hillary Clinton as a brilliant, tough, put-upon victim of (choose at least one: sexism, misogyny, anti-feminism) who is scrapping just to stay in the race and fight for every American's vote.
“She’s being victimized! She’s being railroaded by this young punk with no brain, big ears and a big grin! Don’t let the sun go down on her! She’s the only one who can run the country!”
I agree that she's brilliant and tough. The rest of it? Pure bunk.
Hillary Clinton started out with enormous advantages. She got virtually all positive media attention when she announced her candidacy. She enjoyed tremendous name recognition. Compared to Obama, she is the consummate Washington insider, with the connections to match. She was running at 40% in national polls for the Democratic nomination last year - with EIGHT other candidates in the field. She has a two-term President spouse who has thrown all his political resources and chits behind her candidacy. She had 200 superdelegate endorsements before a single vote was ever cast in the Iowa caucuses. She had a $120 million war chest ready to go.
Now, all she has is a $5 million IOU and a small - but difficult to close - delegate deficit.
If Clinton loses this race, it has nothing to do with her gender. It has to do with her badly misreading the electorate and badly mismanaging her campaign. Why would one run as a candidate of “experience” in a year where incumbents in general are likely to take a beating? Why would one claim “35 years of experience” that would have to have started the moment she matriculated from Yale Law?
The abject failure to push a correct and consistent message can't be foisted off on Bill Clinton, Mark Penn, Patti Solis Doyle or anyone else. If she can mismanage a $180 million campaign this badly, I shudder to think what she’ll do with a few trillion.
Rocky Balboa? I think not. Try the 2007 New England Patriots. Bill Belichick must have a "19-0" hoodie he can lend to Clinton.
Monday, March 31, 2008
35 Years Of Not Playing Well With Others
No matter what you may think of Sen. Hillary Clinton, she has a plan for everything, and enough tenacity to ride whatever lightning is thrown at her. Much has been made of her as a “fighter”, indicating that she’ll do whatever it takes to accomplish her goals.
Fighting is an important trait, and one that has served both Sen. Clinton and her husband well over the years. It is certainly a quality I want in a President of the United States. However, politics is much more complicated than just a bare-knuckle fight. Politics is the very best – and the very worst – of this country. To be a successful national politician in the United States, you have to have the iron fist – elegantly concealed in a velvet glove. Sen. Clinton is known for her iron fist. However, does she have the détente to be able to work with Congress?
No President can be effective without the ability to work with Congress. The two best modern examples to support this are Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. They often talked tough about Congress to the press. However, they told Congressmen the truth individually, and had a warm personal touch that often helped them overcome practical opposition to their plans. They knew how to negotiate, how to cajole, how to plead with the better angels of a legislator’s nature (which is no small feat). But even more important than knowing how to do those things, they knew WHEN to do them too.
Reviewing Sen. Clinton’s eight years in elected office, it is troubling to note that she has not co-authored a single major piece of legislation that was signed into law. Even her rival for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, can claim bipartisan co-authorship on two major bills that were enacted into law (Lugar-Obama and Coburn-Obama) during his time in Washington – and he’s been in the Senate half as long as Sen. Clinton. This at least demonstrates some ability to reach across the political aisle to get important legislation through Congress.
The only other legislative experience Clinton can claim is the 1993-94 effort to bring about universal health care reform, when she was First Lady. Even in this, though, there was a major problem with Sen. Clinton’s ham-handed administrative style. Far from focusing on positive, collegial communication, she took her task force private, issued thinly veiled threats to anyone seeming to oppose her, and ended up offending even major Congressional Democrats such as Sen. Daniel Moynihan. As a result, her plan – and her reputation – took the fall.
One could easily, and rationally, assert that this combativeness is natural for someone who has been subjected to intense scrutiny, both personally and professionally, throughout her adult life. Were that all there was to tell, that explanation would be the end of this story.
Unfortunately, there’s more to this than just overdeveloped combat instincts. As her biographer, Carl Bernstein, has noted, Sen. Clinton appears to have “a difficult relationship with the truth.” A brief look at some of her foreign policy experience claims underscores both her lack of front-line experience and the “difficult relationship”.
Sen. Clinton says she “helped bring peace to Northern Ireland.” Unfortunately, Lord Trimble, Nobel Peace Prize winner for his role in the Belfast agreement, has characterized this claim as “a wee bit silly.” Brian Feeney, also heavily involved in the negotiations, is even more direct: “The road to peace was carefully documented, and she isn’t on it.”
She says she helped negotiate for open borders for Macedonians. The truth is that those borders were opened the day before she arrived in the area.
Her campaign says her trip to Tuzla was the first time any First Lady has been in a “war zone” since the FDR administration. However, Pat Nixon went to Vietnam – in 1968. That was an actual war zone. In contrast, Sen. Clinton took her daughter along for the trip – and video shows they were flanked by Bosnian children as she made her way from the plane.
Oh yes…the dangerous circumstances she cites in the landing? The pilot of the plane says that there weren’t as much as bees, much less sniper fire. He goes further to say that, far from the “corkscrew landing” Sen. Clinton described, the only reason the flight came in on a steeper than normal approach was due to the hilly terrain, not avoiding anti-aircraft ammunition.
In all of these claims, one can see the kernel of truth around which the larger fabrication was spun. She WAS involved in bringing women’s groups into the Northern Ireland peace process. She WAS involved in the effort to keep borders open for Macedonian refugees. She WAS briefed on the possibility of danger in Tuzla prior to landing. None of this, though, excuses the conflations. As Ron Fournier plaintively asks, “Why wasn’t the truth good enough for Hillary Clinton?”
Okay, so she’s a politician who fights and embellishes. The sad truth is that, to become president, you have to project righteousness while quietly working within the political labyrinth of the Beltway. No modern President gets into office without some mud on their shoes. As long as it isn’t illegal, it’s fair game. So, Sen. Clinton’s “fish stories” aren’t a big deal, right?
Well, if you want to enact a four-part housing relief measure that is estimated to cost in the neighborhood of $30 billion, you’d better be able to not only honestly account for the money and processes, you’d also better be able to TALK (not just fight) with Congressional heavies, both GOP and Democrat. If you want to start bringing troops home from Iraq within your first 100 days in office, you’d better line up Congressional backing. If you want to create “green” jobs, you’d better be able to get the Congressional delegations from auto-producing and heavy industrial states on board with you, because you’ll need them to explain to their electorates what’s happening. If you want to cap health care premiums at 10% of income, you’d better be more convincing than the health care lobbyists who will oppose your plan to your legislative constituency.
Historically, the Clintons have never had good relations with Capitol Hill. Their coattails have never been long, which no lawmaker likes. Democrats took a beating in the 1994 mid-term elections, largely due to national irritation with President Clinton’s moral compass and Sen. Clinton’s unfriendly nature during the health care efforts. It took 12 years – until the political malfeasance that is George W. Bush – for Democrats to recover. Al Gore’s Presidential campaign in 2000 got less White House support than Sen. Clinton’s first run for the Senate that same year. There are Democrats who remember that lack of support with more than just a slight moue of distaste.
Given all these factors, President Hillary Clinton would probably require a supermajority in both houses of Congress just to avoid filibusters. This, unfortunately, is very unlikely, even in a year where Republicans are jumping ship and Democrats are poised to add to their majorities.
Hillary Clinton is a unique figure in American political history – First Lady, U.S. Senator, and the first viable female candidate for President. She is highly intelligent, organized, and determined. Her true, unvarnished record would indicate she doesn’t have a lot of direct experience, but her exposure to and intimacy with national and international concerns would be great for her in the White House. Certainly, she’s given a lot of thought to her plans, especially for the economic crises we face. That deserves credit and recognition.
However, no great Presidential plans can pass without Congressional support. Sen. Clinton’s record on securing bipartisan legislative cooperation indicates that there isn’t much more than fighting and embellishing in her playbook. For all her wonkishness, she lacks a simple precept, espoused on millions of kindergarten report cards every year: “Works and plays well with others.” And a President who can’t be straight with legislators, is unwilling to compromise, and is secretive even with those of the same party will just not work in Washington – especially if one wants to implement the plans she has put together.
Fighting is an important trait, and one that has served both Sen. Clinton and her husband well over the years. It is certainly a quality I want in a President of the United States. However, politics is much more complicated than just a bare-knuckle fight. Politics is the very best – and the very worst – of this country. To be a successful national politician in the United States, you have to have the iron fist – elegantly concealed in a velvet glove. Sen. Clinton is known for her iron fist. However, does she have the détente to be able to work with Congress?
No President can be effective without the ability to work with Congress. The two best modern examples to support this are Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. They often talked tough about Congress to the press. However, they told Congressmen the truth individually, and had a warm personal touch that often helped them overcome practical opposition to their plans. They knew how to negotiate, how to cajole, how to plead with the better angels of a legislator’s nature (which is no small feat). But even more important than knowing how to do those things, they knew WHEN to do them too.
Reviewing Sen. Clinton’s eight years in elected office, it is troubling to note that she has not co-authored a single major piece of legislation that was signed into law. Even her rival for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, can claim bipartisan co-authorship on two major bills that were enacted into law (Lugar-Obama and Coburn-Obama) during his time in Washington – and he’s been in the Senate half as long as Sen. Clinton. This at least demonstrates some ability to reach across the political aisle to get important legislation through Congress.
The only other legislative experience Clinton can claim is the 1993-94 effort to bring about universal health care reform, when she was First Lady. Even in this, though, there was a major problem with Sen. Clinton’s ham-handed administrative style. Far from focusing on positive, collegial communication, she took her task force private, issued thinly veiled threats to anyone seeming to oppose her, and ended up offending even major Congressional Democrats such as Sen. Daniel Moynihan. As a result, her plan – and her reputation – took the fall.
One could easily, and rationally, assert that this combativeness is natural for someone who has been subjected to intense scrutiny, both personally and professionally, throughout her adult life. Were that all there was to tell, that explanation would be the end of this story.
Unfortunately, there’s more to this than just overdeveloped combat instincts. As her biographer, Carl Bernstein, has noted, Sen. Clinton appears to have “a difficult relationship with the truth.” A brief look at some of her foreign policy experience claims underscores both her lack of front-line experience and the “difficult relationship”.
Sen. Clinton says she “helped bring peace to Northern Ireland.” Unfortunately, Lord Trimble, Nobel Peace Prize winner for his role in the Belfast agreement, has characterized this claim as “a wee bit silly.” Brian Feeney, also heavily involved in the negotiations, is even more direct: “The road to peace was carefully documented, and she isn’t on it.”
She says she helped negotiate for open borders for Macedonians. The truth is that those borders were opened the day before she arrived in the area.
Her campaign says her trip to Tuzla was the first time any First Lady has been in a “war zone” since the FDR administration. However, Pat Nixon went to Vietnam – in 1968. That was an actual war zone. In contrast, Sen. Clinton took her daughter along for the trip – and video shows they were flanked by Bosnian children as she made her way from the plane.
Oh yes…the dangerous circumstances she cites in the landing? The pilot of the plane says that there weren’t as much as bees, much less sniper fire. He goes further to say that, far from the “corkscrew landing” Sen. Clinton described, the only reason the flight came in on a steeper than normal approach was due to the hilly terrain, not avoiding anti-aircraft ammunition.
In all of these claims, one can see the kernel of truth around which the larger fabrication was spun. She WAS involved in bringing women’s groups into the Northern Ireland peace process. She WAS involved in the effort to keep borders open for Macedonian refugees. She WAS briefed on the possibility of danger in Tuzla prior to landing. None of this, though, excuses the conflations. As Ron Fournier plaintively asks, “Why wasn’t the truth good enough for Hillary Clinton?”
Okay, so she’s a politician who fights and embellishes. The sad truth is that, to become president, you have to project righteousness while quietly working within the political labyrinth of the Beltway. No modern President gets into office without some mud on their shoes. As long as it isn’t illegal, it’s fair game. So, Sen. Clinton’s “fish stories” aren’t a big deal, right?
Well, if you want to enact a four-part housing relief measure that is estimated to cost in the neighborhood of $30 billion, you’d better be able to not only honestly account for the money and processes, you’d also better be able to TALK (not just fight) with Congressional heavies, both GOP and Democrat. If you want to start bringing troops home from Iraq within your first 100 days in office, you’d better line up Congressional backing. If you want to create “green” jobs, you’d better be able to get the Congressional delegations from auto-producing and heavy industrial states on board with you, because you’ll need them to explain to their electorates what’s happening. If you want to cap health care premiums at 10% of income, you’d better be more convincing than the health care lobbyists who will oppose your plan to your legislative constituency.
Historically, the Clintons have never had good relations with Capitol Hill. Their coattails have never been long, which no lawmaker likes. Democrats took a beating in the 1994 mid-term elections, largely due to national irritation with President Clinton’s moral compass and Sen. Clinton’s unfriendly nature during the health care efforts. It took 12 years – until the political malfeasance that is George W. Bush – for Democrats to recover. Al Gore’s Presidential campaign in 2000 got less White House support than Sen. Clinton’s first run for the Senate that same year. There are Democrats who remember that lack of support with more than just a slight moue of distaste.
Given all these factors, President Hillary Clinton would probably require a supermajority in both houses of Congress just to avoid filibusters. This, unfortunately, is very unlikely, even in a year where Republicans are jumping ship and Democrats are poised to add to their majorities.
Hillary Clinton is a unique figure in American political history – First Lady, U.S. Senator, and the first viable female candidate for President. She is highly intelligent, organized, and determined. Her true, unvarnished record would indicate she doesn’t have a lot of direct experience, but her exposure to and intimacy with national and international concerns would be great for her in the White House. Certainly, she’s given a lot of thought to her plans, especially for the economic crises we face. That deserves credit and recognition.
However, no great Presidential plans can pass without Congressional support. Sen. Clinton’s record on securing bipartisan legislative cooperation indicates that there isn’t much more than fighting and embellishing in her playbook. For all her wonkishness, she lacks a simple precept, espoused on millions of kindergarten report cards every year: “Works and plays well with others.” And a President who can’t be straight with legislators, is unwilling to compromise, and is secretive even with those of the same party will just not work in Washington – especially if one wants to implement the plans she has put together.
Obama: Tactician and Gambler
It is said that any decent chess player knows the basic principles of the game, but that the true hallmark of a master lies in knowing when to violate those principles. It is also said that a good poker player can calculate odds, but a great poker player knows when to truly gamble.
Should he not become President, Senator Barack Obama may want to look into chess or poker.
Conventional political wisdom would argue that, in his discourse on race earlier this month, Obama’s Job #1 was to get as far away as possible from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in word and deed. Obama, according to this convention, would “reject and denounce” Wright in his entirety – and many believe that he should even leave Trinity United Church of Christ, his church home of 20 years.
This would certainly have been the politically expedient solution. It would likely not alienate a significant portion of his electoral base, and it would go a ways toward placating the working-class white vote that most pollsters say is vital to being elected.
This would also have taken some of the bite out of the Republican attack machine, which is certainly drooling at a chance to roll out Swift Boat ads on Obama’s race, religion and alleged lack of patriotism.
Any good political advisor would certainly advocate this approach to dealing with the Wright controversy. Since no Presidential candidate gets as far as Senators Obama, Clinton or McCain without good advisors, it’s safe to say that Obama probably heard this approach a number of times in the days and hours leading up to Wednesday’s speech.
However, there’s a larger principle than electability or delegates at stake here. Obama’s mastery of the American political chessboard was put squarely to the test by this furor. This was the closest any of the candidates will come to a “red phone” moment before Inauguration Day.
Obama chose not to do the expedient thing. Instead, he denounced Wright’s comments – for all the right reasons. As Obama explained clearly, people who believe what Wright believes see America as having made no progress since the Amistad pulled into port. Though the progress has been slow, painful and all too often deadly, we are certainly racially better off as a nation than we were when the first slaves were unloaded on our shores.
Only in today’s America could people like Condoleezza Rice, Norman Mineta and Alberto Gonzales have played such important roles in our government. Only in today’s America could Nancy Pelosi be two heartbeats away from the Presidency. Only in today’s America could we have two African-American governors serving at the same time. Only in today’s America could Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battle for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
At the same time, he chose to approach the Wright question simultaneously from a personal angle. It is in this response that Obama’s true character has been shown. Rather than take a machete to his ties to Wright, he instead stood by him personally, acknowledging the good that Wright has done for his family, in his community and in his service to America as a US Marine. He also acknowledged that Wright, far from being a loony modern-day black militant as some news outlets and commentators would have you believe, has treated people of all races in his church with respect and care. There are many anecdotal stories to support this. (Check the Chicago Tribune for examples, or go to YouTube and look up “Jane Fisler-Hoffman”.)
Many of us have friends from far-flung places. I have the good fortune to have friends from all over the world, and all over the United States. I have friends who argue passionately in favor of pro-life, laissez-faire federal government, reparations, racial segregation, Zionist conspiracy and superiority of the male gender. I personally disagree with all of these positions. However, those friends have also been there for me when I really needed them. They cheered my successes, commiserated on my failures, and always told me what they thought I needed to hear out of genuine love and concern. Will I vote the same way as they do? Not on your life. But I’d never, ever give up their friendship. If the friends, mentors and loves of your life all think the exact same way you do, then there’s probably only one of you doing any real thinking at all.
One of the biggest criticisms of Obama’s speech is that he didn’t directly address the AIDS and 9/11 comments that Wright made. Of course, virtually no news outlet has played, say, the 10 seconds before and the 10 seconds after those comments. Now, I believe that asking God to damn America is wrong. However, Wright was talking about God damning America because it doesn’t treat its citizens like human beings. These two statements are obviously VERY different.
Does anyone deny that America has a history of this behavior? Ignoring all the usual examples of slavery, Jim Crow and segregation, take a look at the Tuskegee syphilis study – a Mengele-like disgrace devised, run and concealed by the US Public Health Service. President Clinton actually formally apologized for the government’s sacrifice of hundreds of black men solely to study long-term effects of the disease. Show of hands from anyone 50 or older: Would you have believed this back in 1972, when the study ended? So it’s not like there isn’t a pattern that supports Wright’s claim of an AIDS cover-up. It is outrageous. It is reprehensible. It is something I wouldn’t cite as true without firm evidence. But it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened in America. Even the wildest conspiracy theories have at their core some ugly truth.
And if you study the Bible at all, you know God is a vengeful God, who will strike out at those who destroy and poison even the least of His children. When you look at Wright’s comments in that context, it makes him look angry, not un-American.
Obama also chose to acknowledge the realities that underlie and define the racial chasms in America. He addressed the real feelings of African-Americans, and placed them in their historical context. He also addressed the real feelings of middle- and lower-middle-class white Americans, and how the worst of those feelings and fears can be manipulated into hatred. After this speech, no one should doubt the maxim that racists aren’t born; they’re made.
Ironically, Obama did show influences of Jeremiah Wright in his comments about racial resentments harbored by working-class whites. Wright has long been an advocate of self-help for African-Americans. (This is a part of black liberation theology, which is a founding cornerstone of Trinity UCC.) By acknowledging that there is a real point in the anger some whites feel toward blacks, Obama also underlines the need for African-Americans to take full responsibility for their lives. Those who really want to paint Obama as “Wright Lite” probably missed this link entirely.
Anyone who argues that this speech was solely based on callous calculation needs a refresher course in political math. Sure, Obama is taking a big gamble by betting that America is so ready for change that our citizens will begin to consider the racial questions his candidacy has raised. However, what he’s gambling with are his Presidential aspirations – and quite possibly his political future in its entirety. As any top poker player will tell you, going all-in with stakes that big is a mathematical, intuitive and emotional calculation. Crunching the numbers alone doesn’t make you risk your adult life’s work on directly confronting such an explosive topic.
Adversity does not build character. Adversity reveals character. When a much easier and safer path was available, Barack Obama chose the political road less traveled. Will this result in his inauguration ten months hence? No one knows. However, in discarding the tried-and-true principle of only talking about race in glowing Kumbaya-type terms, Obama forcefully demonstrated not only the depth of his own American understanding, but also the forthrightness, analytical ability and loyalty that all Americans should want and demand from their leaders.
Should he not become President, Senator Barack Obama may want to look into chess or poker.
Conventional political wisdom would argue that, in his discourse on race earlier this month, Obama’s Job #1 was to get as far away as possible from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in word and deed. Obama, according to this convention, would “reject and denounce” Wright in his entirety – and many believe that he should even leave Trinity United Church of Christ, his church home of 20 years.
This would certainly have been the politically expedient solution. It would likely not alienate a significant portion of his electoral base, and it would go a ways toward placating the working-class white vote that most pollsters say is vital to being elected.
This would also have taken some of the bite out of the Republican attack machine, which is certainly drooling at a chance to roll out Swift Boat ads on Obama’s race, religion and alleged lack of patriotism.
Any good political advisor would certainly advocate this approach to dealing with the Wright controversy. Since no Presidential candidate gets as far as Senators Obama, Clinton or McCain without good advisors, it’s safe to say that Obama probably heard this approach a number of times in the days and hours leading up to Wednesday’s speech.
However, there’s a larger principle than electability or delegates at stake here. Obama’s mastery of the American political chessboard was put squarely to the test by this furor. This was the closest any of the candidates will come to a “red phone” moment before Inauguration Day.
Obama chose not to do the expedient thing. Instead, he denounced Wright’s comments – for all the right reasons. As Obama explained clearly, people who believe what Wright believes see America as having made no progress since the Amistad pulled into port. Though the progress has been slow, painful and all too often deadly, we are certainly racially better off as a nation than we were when the first slaves were unloaded on our shores.
Only in today’s America could people like Condoleezza Rice, Norman Mineta and Alberto Gonzales have played such important roles in our government. Only in today’s America could Nancy Pelosi be two heartbeats away from the Presidency. Only in today’s America could we have two African-American governors serving at the same time. Only in today’s America could Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battle for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
At the same time, he chose to approach the Wright question simultaneously from a personal angle. It is in this response that Obama’s true character has been shown. Rather than take a machete to his ties to Wright, he instead stood by him personally, acknowledging the good that Wright has done for his family, in his community and in his service to America as a US Marine. He also acknowledged that Wright, far from being a loony modern-day black militant as some news outlets and commentators would have you believe, has treated people of all races in his church with respect and care. There are many anecdotal stories to support this. (Check the Chicago Tribune for examples, or go to YouTube and look up “Jane Fisler-Hoffman”.)
Many of us have friends from far-flung places. I have the good fortune to have friends from all over the world, and all over the United States. I have friends who argue passionately in favor of pro-life, laissez-faire federal government, reparations, racial segregation, Zionist conspiracy and superiority of the male gender. I personally disagree with all of these positions. However, those friends have also been there for me when I really needed them. They cheered my successes, commiserated on my failures, and always told me what they thought I needed to hear out of genuine love and concern. Will I vote the same way as they do? Not on your life. But I’d never, ever give up their friendship. If the friends, mentors and loves of your life all think the exact same way you do, then there’s probably only one of you doing any real thinking at all.
One of the biggest criticisms of Obama’s speech is that he didn’t directly address the AIDS and 9/11 comments that Wright made. Of course, virtually no news outlet has played, say, the 10 seconds before and the 10 seconds after those comments. Now, I believe that asking God to damn America is wrong. However, Wright was talking about God damning America because it doesn’t treat its citizens like human beings. These two statements are obviously VERY different.
Does anyone deny that America has a history of this behavior? Ignoring all the usual examples of slavery, Jim Crow and segregation, take a look at the Tuskegee syphilis study – a Mengele-like disgrace devised, run and concealed by the US Public Health Service. President Clinton actually formally apologized for the government’s sacrifice of hundreds of black men solely to study long-term effects of the disease. Show of hands from anyone 50 or older: Would you have believed this back in 1972, when the study ended? So it’s not like there isn’t a pattern that supports Wright’s claim of an AIDS cover-up. It is outrageous. It is reprehensible. It is something I wouldn’t cite as true without firm evidence. But it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened in America. Even the wildest conspiracy theories have at their core some ugly truth.
And if you study the Bible at all, you know God is a vengeful God, who will strike out at those who destroy and poison even the least of His children. When you look at Wright’s comments in that context, it makes him look angry, not un-American.
Obama also chose to acknowledge the realities that underlie and define the racial chasms in America. He addressed the real feelings of African-Americans, and placed them in their historical context. He also addressed the real feelings of middle- and lower-middle-class white Americans, and how the worst of those feelings and fears can be manipulated into hatred. After this speech, no one should doubt the maxim that racists aren’t born; they’re made.
Ironically, Obama did show influences of Jeremiah Wright in his comments about racial resentments harbored by working-class whites. Wright has long been an advocate of self-help for African-Americans. (This is a part of black liberation theology, which is a founding cornerstone of Trinity UCC.) By acknowledging that there is a real point in the anger some whites feel toward blacks, Obama also underlines the need for African-Americans to take full responsibility for their lives. Those who really want to paint Obama as “Wright Lite” probably missed this link entirely.
Anyone who argues that this speech was solely based on callous calculation needs a refresher course in political math. Sure, Obama is taking a big gamble by betting that America is so ready for change that our citizens will begin to consider the racial questions his candidacy has raised. However, what he’s gambling with are his Presidential aspirations – and quite possibly his political future in its entirety. As any top poker player will tell you, going all-in with stakes that big is a mathematical, intuitive and emotional calculation. Crunching the numbers alone doesn’t make you risk your adult life’s work on directly confronting such an explosive topic.
Adversity does not build character. Adversity reveals character. When a much easier and safer path was available, Barack Obama chose the political road less traveled. Will this result in his inauguration ten months hence? No one knows. However, in discarding the tried-and-true principle of only talking about race in glowing Kumbaya-type terms, Obama forcefully demonstrated not only the depth of his own American understanding, but also the forthrightness, analytical ability and loyalty that all Americans should want and demand from their leaders.
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