Barack Obama is truly blessed.
The “useful idiots” Ronald Reagan and his ruling class masters drew into the GOP have taken over the party’s public face completely– and they are dragging the party down beyond anyone’s expectations. Nevada Senator John Ensign and South Carolina governor Mark Sanford are the latest, most spectacular examples of God-fearing, gay baiting, family values and, especially in Sanford’s case, free-marketeering imbeciles self-destructing. That liberal pundits depict Sanford’s travails as tragic, rather than deliciously bathetic, only goes to show how mindless liberal pundits are.
As Obama gears up to be the first American President since Eisenhower to try, albeit gingerly, to exert pressure on our utterly dependent client state, Israel, the viciously right-wing Netanyahu government, outflanked by parties to its right and to the right of their right are busily involved in enacting transparently racist laws. They want to disenfranchise Israeli Arabs by requiring their political representatives to swear oaths to support Israel as a Jewish and democratic state; and they want to imperil, and perhaps someday even deport, Israeli leftists by imposing prison terms on anyone who dares say or write otherwise. [Thus their policies are not only racist but also patently self-contradictory.] Were this turn in Israeli politics more widely known, it would relieve some of the Israel-right-or-wrong pressure that deforms our political culture. That it is not more widely known only goes to show how morally bankrupt liberal pundits, and the media they work for, are.
As Obama prepares to engage Iran diplomatically, his critics to the Right – John “Bomb Bomb Iran” McCain especially, along with his sidekick Lindsey Graham – have been busy making fools of themselves and showing how little they’ve learned from the debacle the neo-conservative Bush foreign policy establishment has visited upon the world, by insisting that Obama do more to make American “support for democracy and freedom” the issue in Iran. Obama was blessed during the campaign to be running against fools such as these, and now they’re back in full swing. It’s not just that they’re obviously wrong; they’re also playing a self-defeating game. By calling on Obama to be more outspoken in support of opponents of the Ahmadinejad government, the neo-neo-cons of the Republican Party have made it harder for themselves (and their Israeli colleagues) to get their way. Do they really think that public opinion will support “bomb bomb bomb(ing)” people they depict as heroes?
The list goes on. Polls reveal enormous public support for freeing the health care system from the scourge of health care profiteers – private insurance companies especially; for sticking it to Wall Street predators rather than sticking everything back in their bloated pockets; for doing away with Clinton and Bush era homophobic laws; for coming out strongly against right-wing, homegrown terrorists and supporting women’s reproductive rights; and so on. But what does Obama do about it? The short answer is: very little.
With each passing day, Obama waxes more and more Pelosiite. [As I have explained in counteless entries, going back to the beginning of this blog, Pelosiism is later day Clintonism. Like classical Clintonites, Pelosiites overestimate the power of the Right and then triangulate with a view to placing themselves, as best they can, in the center of the center. If this means betraying their most ardent supporters, so be it; they can always be taken for granted. If it means displaying abject spinelessness, they not only don’t care; they’re oblivious. If it means acquiescing in crimes of historical dimensions, then that’s OK too. Pelosiism is opportunism for opportunism’s sake.] The difference from the Clinton era is that now the opportunities for “real change” are so much greater and the stakes so much higher. This is why there is even more reason to reproach Pelosiites than the Clintonites of yesteryear; and why it is rapidly becoming the case that Obama is even worse than Bill Clinton. But none of this has yet dawned on most of the already betrayed Obamamaniacs still out there. Along with the “boost don’t knock crowd” in Washington’s “liberal” “think” tanks, they remain all too willing to give their Supreme Leader the benefit of every doubt.
The gods have truly blessed Barack Obama by handing him a consummately pathetic GOP, unworthy of its semi-established status. But, along with his co-thinkers in the POP, the Party of Pusillanimity (or, what comes to the same thing, the Party of Pelosiites), he has so far seen fit to squander his blessings with reckless, “bipartisan,” “pragmatic,” “centrist” abandon.
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Friday, February 29, 2008
The Democrats' Vietnam Syndrome
If we are lucky, by this time next week the Clintons will have departed the national political scene, never to return. The Republican slime machine is already gearing up to attack Barack Obama. Lucky for him that his middle name is only Hussain. How much uglier the next several months would be if it were, say, Yasser.
If only out of self-interest, one might think that the Democrats would respond with equal or greater vehemence -- attacking John McCain for his “service” in Vietnam. That would not be sleazy at all; it would be principled. But it would conflict with the narrative they have collaborated in concocting almost from the moment that Nixon began to “Vietnamize” the war. Since then, with few exceptions, Democrats have told the same story as McCain: that the war’s aims were fine, that it was fought honorably (for the most part), and that “we” lost because the civilian leadership, intimidated by dissenters, was overly timid. National Security Democrats promote this view. These quasi-neo-cons may be less quick than real deal neo-cons to pick fights. But once they’re in, they’re in. Hillary Clinton was their candidate. Now it looks like Obama will put the kybosh on that. But he won’t challenge their underlying narrative. Thus, instead of castigating McCain as a Vietnam warrior, he praises him. McCain, Obama tells us, may be wrong on Iraq and almost everything else, but he is a war hero, and heroes are owed their due.
Liberals were less obtuse when Ronald Reagan honored fallen German soldiers, including members of the Waffen SS, at a Nazi cemetery in Bitburg in 1985. The soldiers buried at Bitburg were heroes too -- in the way McCain is. But no American liberal, and no sane German, would doubt for a moment that, because they were on the wrong (not just the losing) side, their war service was a disqualification for high political office. That’s because Germany came to terms with its Nazi past to a degree that the United States has never come to terms with Kennedy’s, Johnson’s and Nixon’s war. That McCain might be President is, to use the Biblical idiom evangelical Republicans understand, an abomination. But don’t wait for a Democrat, least of all Obama, to point this out.
The Vietnam War was a crime, not a mistake. Not to acknowledge this is to be susceptible to crimes of a similar kind. This is why, if Obama does what he now says he will, we will have a President who will bring (most) combat troops home, but who will leave trainers, guards and “anti-terror” strike forces, along with background support troops and private contractors (mercenaries) in Iraq for an indefinite future, continuing the occupation. This why Obama will boost the Pentagon budget, boost the size of the armed forces, and intensify Bush’s other war in Afghanistan. Yes, what Obama proposes is better than John McCain’s suggestion that it might be necessary to keep troops in Iraq for a hundred years. But it’s not a change of course; only a smarter implementation of the old course. A lesser evil certainly, but an evil nevertheless.
* *
Meanwhile, Ralph Nader has announced that he’ll run an independent campaign and not seek the Green Party nomination. This removes party building as a reason to support him. The best that could come of his running now is that his campaign might help keep progressive ideas in circulation, and pull Obama to the left. These are eminently worthwhile goals. But with the media ignoring (and occasionally deriding) him, with liberal Democrats fuming at him, with our very undemocratic electoral institutions impeding his or any other candidacy outside the Republicrat fold, and with clueless Obamamaniacs enthusing over the candidate he wants to affect, one can only wonder how much good another Nader campaign can do.
If only out of self-interest, one might think that the Democrats would respond with equal or greater vehemence -- attacking John McCain for his “service” in Vietnam. That would not be sleazy at all; it would be principled. But it would conflict with the narrative they have collaborated in concocting almost from the moment that Nixon began to “Vietnamize” the war. Since then, with few exceptions, Democrats have told the same story as McCain: that the war’s aims were fine, that it was fought honorably (for the most part), and that “we” lost because the civilian leadership, intimidated by dissenters, was overly timid. National Security Democrats promote this view. These quasi-neo-cons may be less quick than real deal neo-cons to pick fights. But once they’re in, they’re in. Hillary Clinton was their candidate. Now it looks like Obama will put the kybosh on that. But he won’t challenge their underlying narrative. Thus, instead of castigating McCain as a Vietnam warrior, he praises him. McCain, Obama tells us, may be wrong on Iraq and almost everything else, but he is a war hero, and heroes are owed their due.
Liberals were less obtuse when Ronald Reagan honored fallen German soldiers, including members of the Waffen SS, at a Nazi cemetery in Bitburg in 1985. The soldiers buried at Bitburg were heroes too -- in the way McCain is. But no American liberal, and no sane German, would doubt for a moment that, because they were on the wrong (not just the losing) side, their war service was a disqualification for high political office. That’s because Germany came to terms with its Nazi past to a degree that the United States has never come to terms with Kennedy’s, Johnson’s and Nixon’s war. That McCain might be President is, to use the Biblical idiom evangelical Republicans understand, an abomination. But don’t wait for a Democrat, least of all Obama, to point this out.
The Vietnam War was a crime, not a mistake. Not to acknowledge this is to be susceptible to crimes of a similar kind. This is why, if Obama does what he now says he will, we will have a President who will bring (most) combat troops home, but who will leave trainers, guards and “anti-terror” strike forces, along with background support troops and private contractors (mercenaries) in Iraq for an indefinite future, continuing the occupation. This why Obama will boost the Pentagon budget, boost the size of the armed forces, and intensify Bush’s other war in Afghanistan. Yes, what Obama proposes is better than John McCain’s suggestion that it might be necessary to keep troops in Iraq for a hundred years. But it’s not a change of course; only a smarter implementation of the old course. A lesser evil certainly, but an evil nevertheless.
* *
Meanwhile, Ralph Nader has announced that he’ll run an independent campaign and not seek the Green Party nomination. This removes party building as a reason to support him. The best that could come of his running now is that his campaign might help keep progressive ideas in circulation, and pull Obama to the left. These are eminently worthwhile goals. But with the media ignoring (and occasionally deriding) him, with liberal Democrats fuming at him, with our very undemocratic electoral institutions impeding his or any other candidacy outside the Republicrat fold, and with clueless Obamamaniacs enthusing over the candidate he wants to affect, one can only wonder how much good another Nader campaign can do.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Rorschach Man
The danger of an outright Clinton Restoration is still considerable; but, with Super Tuesday approaching, the rush is on to endorse Barack Obama. It’s not just the Kennedys; Susan Eisenhower, “lifelong Republican,” has gotten in on the act too. Caroline thinks Obama is “inspiring,” like her father; Susan thinks he’s “pragmatic” and sensible, like her grand father. These endorsements would be reasons to vote against Obama, were he not running against the Clintons. Camelot was bad enough; in retrospect, the boring, uninspiring and uninspired Eisenhower years were better, but who needs that again either! There was, and maybe still is, a chance that we can do better; but the Forces of Darkness (the corporate and corporate friendly media, mainly) in conjunction with a politically clueless Democratic electorate have all but done that prospect in. So, yes, lets hope Obama beats Hillary on Super Tuesday. Vote for him, faute de mieux. But endorse him? How pathetic is that!
That’s precisely what moveon.org did. They polled their members who voted overwhelmingly for Obama. The way they posed the question – forcing a choice between Clinton and Obama – constrained the answer. Who wouldn’t vote for Obama in those circumstances? Lots of people, probably, as we’ll soon see. But those people, the ones who aren’t covert racists, are a tad deluded; they think Bill Clinton’s presidency wasn’t god awful. Compared to Cheney and Bush’s, they have a point. But anything or anybody, except maybe John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Preacher Huckabee, would look good in comparison with those two. That doesn’t change the fact: the Clinton administration, with its Iraq sanctions, its Yugoslavian wars, its murderous bombing raids and, let’s not forget, its Reaganite assault on the poor and “the great forgotten middle class” (aka the working class, but no Clintonite will use those words), the inevitable by-product of free trade, deregulation and the diminution of already feeble welfare state institutions, was indeed god awful.
The New York Post, Rupert Murdoch’s flagship scandal sheet, endorsed Obama too. What gives with that? Bill Clinton’s media giveaways and his support for media deregulation were good for Murdoch, and the Clintons have been kissing Murdoch ass assiduously for years (especially after Hillary decided to run for the Senate). They’ve had some success. If nothing else, Murdoch never went after Hillary the way “the great right wing conspiracy” used to go after her and Bill. Why didn’t he endorse her then? After all, he is not averse to helping out inveterate opportunistic centrists who can be useful to him (Tony Blair, for example). You’d think the devil would go with the devil he knows. There has to be some percentage for him in The Post’s endorsement. Is it just that he wants to get on the good side of the candidate he thinks will win? Or are more sinister machinations going on? The media are mum. Perhaps time or somebody’s self-serving memoir will tell.
Schemers apart, it seems that, through the skillful deployment of vacuous abstractions (change, hope, unity), Obama has made himself into a Rorschach man in whom naïve people see what they want. Whether or not there’s any there there – that too only time will tell. What is clear now is that there’s enough ambiguity and vagueness in Obama’s “message” for quite a few people to think that a vote for him really is a vote for change and/or hope and/or unity and/or who knows what. What these endorsements tell us about Obama has been clear for those who are not willfully blind for a long time. The more interesting question is what they tell us about the endorsers.
That’s precisely what moveon.org did. They polled their members who voted overwhelmingly for Obama. The way they posed the question – forcing a choice between Clinton and Obama – constrained the answer. Who wouldn’t vote for Obama in those circumstances? Lots of people, probably, as we’ll soon see. But those people, the ones who aren’t covert racists, are a tad deluded; they think Bill Clinton’s presidency wasn’t god awful. Compared to Cheney and Bush’s, they have a point. But anything or anybody, except maybe John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Preacher Huckabee, would look good in comparison with those two. That doesn’t change the fact: the Clinton administration, with its Iraq sanctions, its Yugoslavian wars, its murderous bombing raids and, let’s not forget, its Reaganite assault on the poor and “the great forgotten middle class” (aka the working class, but no Clintonite will use those words), the inevitable by-product of free trade, deregulation and the diminution of already feeble welfare state institutions, was indeed god awful.
The New York Post, Rupert Murdoch’s flagship scandal sheet, endorsed Obama too. What gives with that? Bill Clinton’s media giveaways and his support for media deregulation were good for Murdoch, and the Clintons have been kissing Murdoch ass assiduously for years (especially after Hillary decided to run for the Senate). They’ve had some success. If nothing else, Murdoch never went after Hillary the way “the great right wing conspiracy” used to go after her and Bill. Why didn’t he endorse her then? After all, he is not averse to helping out inveterate opportunistic centrists who can be useful to him (Tony Blair, for example). You’d think the devil would go with the devil he knows. There has to be some percentage for him in The Post’s endorsement. Is it just that he wants to get on the good side of the candidate he thinks will win? Or are more sinister machinations going on? The media are mum. Perhaps time or somebody’s self-serving memoir will tell.
Schemers apart, it seems that, through the skillful deployment of vacuous abstractions (change, hope, unity), Obama has made himself into a Rorschach man in whom naïve people see what they want. Whether or not there’s any there there – that too only time will tell. What is clear now is that there’s enough ambiguity and vagueness in Obama’s “message” for quite a few people to think that a vote for him really is a vote for change and/or hope and/or unity and/or who knows what. What these endorsements tell us about Obama has been clear for those who are not willfully blind for a long time. The more interesting question is what they tell us about the endorsers.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Kerry Endorses Obama
In 2004, I concluded reluctantly that the most effective way to vote against Bush was to vote for John Kerry. Not paying much attention to what Kerry said made abiding by that decision easier. After 2004, Kerry made a slight left turn; especially on the Iraq War. His transformation was far less dramatic than Al Gore’s, but it was still significant. That’s why it was distressing to see that he repudiated his 2004 running mate, John Edwards, in favor of Barack Obama, the candidate, along with Hillary, of the mushy middle. With Edwards, there was a chance to elect a genuinely progressive Democrat – for the first time in decades. That prospect appalls Clintonites. Kerry has always been a Clintonite. He still is, but at least he’s evolved into an anti-Clinton Clintonite. That’s probably what we’d get with Obama too. It’s better than the genuine article, but it remains to be seen by how much.
Is this another sign that Edwards is finished? Most likely. But there’s still one slender reed to grasp. Ironically, Clinton’s New Hampshire victory revealed its presence, though it’s unlikely that many Democratic voters will have the wits to realize it.
In 2004, people voted for Kerry to vote against Bush, but did anybody really like him? To be sure, in the primaries that year, the “left” opposition -- apart from the always marginalized Dennis Kucinich – was Howard Dean, a thoroughly transparent phony. But Kerry didn’t win because the opposition had even worse politics than he did, and he certainly didn’t win on charisma, the way Obama might. Democratic voters back then were not Kerry enthusiasts; they were pundit wannabes. They had the idea that Kerry had the best chance to win against Bush. Right or wrong, in those ABB (Anybody But Bush) days, that was all Kerry needed to win the nomination.
That was not exactly a laudable or salutary way of thinking. But neither is its opposite. Always in disequilibrium, indifference to punditry afflicts Democratic voters now. It’s too bad. You’d think that if voters aren’t moved by the plain fact that Edwards is the best of the ‘electable’ candidates, they’d find it relevant, as all the polling data indicates, that he’s the most electable.
In Hillary’s case, it’s obvious why. The Land of the Free is full of people who hate her guts – mostly for the wrong reasons. The best chance for any of those miserable Republican candidates to win after Bush is the virtual certainty that her presence on the ticket will galvanize the opposition. Obama isn’t hated the same way; he’s too “likeable.” But he’s also a problematic candidate, as the failure of the polls to predict the outcome in New Hampshire indicates.
Over the past few days, polling mavens have been all over radio and television and the print media, trying to explain how they got the outcome so wrong. Their explanations are fairly lame. What makes the most sense, though, are two hypotheses, both of which revolve around the idea that voters didn’t do what they told pollsters they would. Both hypotheses could be true.
What I suggested the morning after is that people felt sorry for Hillary, especially after she teared up. This is tantamount to saying that there are lots of stupid people out there. That might just be true. A variant on this explanation that gives voters a bit more credit is that people were reacting against the corporate and corporate friendly media (like NPR) by voting against Obama, their favorite candidate. That position was put forward in salon.com by Joe Conason, not the shrewdest of observers, but on this he may be right.
The more worrisome hypothesis is that the so-called Bradley effect is alive and well: in other words, that, when it comes time to pull the lever (or touch the voting screen), lots of white voters just can’t bring themselves to vote for an African-American, no matter what they told pollsters days or even minutes before. This is tantamount to saying that there are lots of racist voters out there. That might just be true as well.
Needless to say, the stupidity hypothesis and the racist hypothesis are not mutually exclusive. Some voters might be stupid, some might be racist, some might be both. Evidently, there was enough of that going around to confute all the polls.
Thus it may be that forty some years after the end of legal segregation, the country still isn’t ready for a black President. It’s not a pleasant thought. But it’s something Democratic voters might keep in mind. The problem, if it’s real, won’t disappear by ignoring it, or by willing it away.
This is not to say that the only reason Edwards is more electable than Obama is that he’s a white guy. It matters too that his politics is better – in ways that are better for African Americans along with most other likely Democratic voters. In a slightly better possible world, that would be more than enough to win the nomination. But in the actual world, better politics doesn’t cut it. One reason why is malign neglect. I’ve written many times before about how the corporate and corporate friendly media have done their best to ignore the Edwards campaign. That counts for something. But I think there’s another reason as well. Most Americans want peace, but there isn’t much of a peace movement. Yes, lots of people can be assembled in Washington or New York; lots of energy and resources can be expended. But nobody feels threatened by periodic parades; therefore no one in power has any need to accommodate to the demands put forward in them. That’s a major difference from the Vietnam period. Yes too, many Americans, especially working Americans, support Edwards’ domestic policies more than Obama’s (to the extent they think they know what his are) or Clinton’s. But there too, there are no social movements, threatening social stablility, spurring changes on. This too is a difference from the 1960s, when many American cities were in open insurrection and when liberation movements were on the point of turning into class-based movements for fundamental social and economic change. When it comes to genuine “change,” electoral politics is not and never has been where the action is. Edwards, unfortunately, found himself having to go against this stubborn fact; he found himself leading – not following the way, say, Bobby Kennedy did in his final days. This is laudable. But, with our media and with our electoral system, it isn’t a recipe for success.
Edwards, of course, is no radical; he’s more like what Paul Wellstone was – a member of the (largely imaginary) “democratic wing” of the Democratic Party. That isn’t nearly enough. But it’s a whole lot better than the alternative(s). The proof: that Edwards was far enough out ahead of the Clintonized Democratic party and the political culture it sustains for the media to be able to ignore him as thoroughly as they did.
As I said, all is not lost yet: there’s still a shred of hope. By next month, that will probably be gone. Then it will be time to start thinking seriously of supporting a “third” party candidate – not one led by a plutocrat like Michael Bloomberg, but by someone genuinely on the left. Of course, if the media could effectively marginalize John Edwards, how much more so someone more radical than he, running outside the ambit of the duopoly party system! Nevertheless, to raise just one possibility that has already been floated -- a Cynthia McKinney candidacy, on a Green Party ticket, would provide an opportunity to raise issues that lie beyond the ken of the best the Democratic Party can offer. To cite two obvious examples: the prospect of bringing the Cheney/Bush gang of criminals and their collaborators in both parties to justice could be put on the agenda, along with the prospect of treating Israel as a normal state, accountable to the same standards of international morality and law as any other. If any of that discussion can get past the media’s (internalized) censors, it would be all for the good. It’s not much of a silver lining. But it is something.
Is this another sign that Edwards is finished? Most likely. But there’s still one slender reed to grasp. Ironically, Clinton’s New Hampshire victory revealed its presence, though it’s unlikely that many Democratic voters will have the wits to realize it.
In 2004, people voted for Kerry to vote against Bush, but did anybody really like him? To be sure, in the primaries that year, the “left” opposition -- apart from the always marginalized Dennis Kucinich – was Howard Dean, a thoroughly transparent phony. But Kerry didn’t win because the opposition had even worse politics than he did, and he certainly didn’t win on charisma, the way Obama might. Democratic voters back then were not Kerry enthusiasts; they were pundit wannabes. They had the idea that Kerry had the best chance to win against Bush. Right or wrong, in those ABB (Anybody But Bush) days, that was all Kerry needed to win the nomination.
That was not exactly a laudable or salutary way of thinking. But neither is its opposite. Always in disequilibrium, indifference to punditry afflicts Democratic voters now. It’s too bad. You’d think that if voters aren’t moved by the plain fact that Edwards is the best of the ‘electable’ candidates, they’d find it relevant, as all the polling data indicates, that he’s the most electable.
In Hillary’s case, it’s obvious why. The Land of the Free is full of people who hate her guts – mostly for the wrong reasons. The best chance for any of those miserable Republican candidates to win after Bush is the virtual certainty that her presence on the ticket will galvanize the opposition. Obama isn’t hated the same way; he’s too “likeable.” But he’s also a problematic candidate, as the failure of the polls to predict the outcome in New Hampshire indicates.
Over the past few days, polling mavens have been all over radio and television and the print media, trying to explain how they got the outcome so wrong. Their explanations are fairly lame. What makes the most sense, though, are two hypotheses, both of which revolve around the idea that voters didn’t do what they told pollsters they would. Both hypotheses could be true.
What I suggested the morning after is that people felt sorry for Hillary, especially after she teared up. This is tantamount to saying that there are lots of stupid people out there. That might just be true. A variant on this explanation that gives voters a bit more credit is that people were reacting against the corporate and corporate friendly media (like NPR) by voting against Obama, their favorite candidate. That position was put forward in salon.com by Joe Conason, not the shrewdest of observers, but on this he may be right.
The more worrisome hypothesis is that the so-called Bradley effect is alive and well: in other words, that, when it comes time to pull the lever (or touch the voting screen), lots of white voters just can’t bring themselves to vote for an African-American, no matter what they told pollsters days or even minutes before. This is tantamount to saying that there are lots of racist voters out there. That might just be true as well.
Needless to say, the stupidity hypothesis and the racist hypothesis are not mutually exclusive. Some voters might be stupid, some might be racist, some might be both. Evidently, there was enough of that going around to confute all the polls.
Thus it may be that forty some years after the end of legal segregation, the country still isn’t ready for a black President. It’s not a pleasant thought. But it’s something Democratic voters might keep in mind. The problem, if it’s real, won’t disappear by ignoring it, or by willing it away.
This is not to say that the only reason Edwards is more electable than Obama is that he’s a white guy. It matters too that his politics is better – in ways that are better for African Americans along with most other likely Democratic voters. In a slightly better possible world, that would be more than enough to win the nomination. But in the actual world, better politics doesn’t cut it. One reason why is malign neglect. I’ve written many times before about how the corporate and corporate friendly media have done their best to ignore the Edwards campaign. That counts for something. But I think there’s another reason as well. Most Americans want peace, but there isn’t much of a peace movement. Yes, lots of people can be assembled in Washington or New York; lots of energy and resources can be expended. But nobody feels threatened by periodic parades; therefore no one in power has any need to accommodate to the demands put forward in them. That’s a major difference from the Vietnam period. Yes too, many Americans, especially working Americans, support Edwards’ domestic policies more than Obama’s (to the extent they think they know what his are) or Clinton’s. But there too, there are no social movements, threatening social stablility, spurring changes on. This too is a difference from the 1960s, when many American cities were in open insurrection and when liberation movements were on the point of turning into class-based movements for fundamental social and economic change. When it comes to genuine “change,” electoral politics is not and never has been where the action is. Edwards, unfortunately, found himself having to go against this stubborn fact; he found himself leading – not following the way, say, Bobby Kennedy did in his final days. This is laudable. But, with our media and with our electoral system, it isn’t a recipe for success.
Edwards, of course, is no radical; he’s more like what Paul Wellstone was – a member of the (largely imaginary) “democratic wing” of the Democratic Party. That isn’t nearly enough. But it’s a whole lot better than the alternative(s). The proof: that Edwards was far enough out ahead of the Clintonized Democratic party and the political culture it sustains for the media to be able to ignore him as thoroughly as they did.
As I said, all is not lost yet: there’s still a shred of hope. By next month, that will probably be gone. Then it will be time to start thinking seriously of supporting a “third” party candidate – not one led by a plutocrat like Michael Bloomberg, but by someone genuinely on the left. Of course, if the media could effectively marginalize John Edwards, how much more so someone more radical than he, running outside the ambit of the duopoly party system! Nevertheless, to raise just one possibility that has already been floated -- a Cynthia McKinney candidacy, on a Green Party ticket, would provide an opportunity to raise issues that lie beyond the ken of the best the Democratic Party can offer. To cite two obvious examples: the prospect of bringing the Cheney/Bush gang of criminals and their collaborators in both parties to justice could be put on the agenda, along with the prospect of treating Israel as a normal state, accountable to the same standards of international morality and law as any other. If any of that discussion can get past the media’s (internalized) censors, it would be all for the good. It’s not much of a silver lining. But it is something.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
The Best Reason to Vote AGAINST Obama
On a day when an article by Patrick Healy in The New York Times (Dec. 26) sensibly deflates Hillary Clinton’s claims for foreign policy experience, we should recall that the best case for the hypothesis that Obama is a (not very closeted) Clintonite – and therefore the best reason to vote against him – is that he claims that the majority of (Bill) Clinton’s foreign policy “experts” favor him. There is no doubt that Hillary would bring many of them back on board. Now it’s clearer that he would too.
Since our “democracy” vests inordinate political influence upon Iowa caucus goers and New Hampshire voters, lets do all that we can to remind those folks, our de facto representatives, of the Iraq sanctions, the bombing escapades, the illegal “demonstration war” against Serbia in Kosovo and in Serbia proper, and indeed all the (somewhat more competently executed) neo-con policies the Clintonites implemented. One of the reasons it was hard to vote for John Kerry in 2004 was the prospect that Richard Holbrooke or someone of his ilk (perhaps even Joe Biden) would become Secretary of State. That reason pertains now, with equal or greater force, not just to Hillary but to Obama as well. John Edwards could restore Clintonites to power too; but, in his case, there is still hope.
Since our “democracy” vests inordinate political influence upon Iowa caucus goers and New Hampshire voters, lets do all that we can to remind those folks, our de facto representatives, of the Iraq sanctions, the bombing escapades, the illegal “demonstration war” against Serbia in Kosovo and in Serbia proper, and indeed all the (somewhat more competently executed) neo-con policies the Clintonites implemented. One of the reasons it was hard to vote for John Kerry in 2004 was the prospect that Richard Holbrooke or someone of his ilk (perhaps even Joe Biden) would become Secretary of State. That reason pertains now, with equal or greater force, not just to Hillary but to Obama as well. John Edwards could restore Clintonites to power too; but, in his case, there is still hope.
Friday, August 24, 2007
The Crossover Candidate
An article by Michael Scherer in salon.com cites several polls that indicate that, of the top three Democratic contenders, the one with the most crossover appeal to Republicans and independents is Barack Obama. Scherer also cites data that suggest that Democrats believe that Hillary Clinton is their most electable candidate. Evidently, they’re wrong.
Of course, the general election is still far off, even if most of the primaries are not nearly as far off as they ought to be; and, with months to go even until the primaries, most likely voters have yet to focus on the candidates. But Scherer’s findings make sense. More people hate Hillary than hate any of the others. This has been true for as long as she’s been in the public spotlight. It is a somewhat puzzling phenomenon. No one just a shade to the left of “the vast right-wing conspiracy” has any cause to hate her for her politics; if they did, they’d have to hate their own politics too. Is it because she’s an uppity woman? That’s certainly part of it. But they’ve always hated her better half as much or more than they’ve hated her. There’s evidently something about that whole rotten dynasty wannabe. I think I know what it is: the Clintons are not just phonies; they’re slick phonies. There’s something about that that drives the hard right nuts. Diehard Republicans don’t mind bumpkins or dummies (so long as they don’t f…k up too badly). They don’t mind evil demons, like Cheney or Rove, provided they seem sincere. They don’t mind fools (e.g. Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzales and so on). They can even go for sanctimonious twits like Joe Lieberman. But slicksters set them off. It’s stupid, but you gotta take what you can get. If HRC is unelectable, even if the reasons why are silly or unfathomable or both, we can only be grateful. Otherwise, she might get elected. According to Scherer’s data, John Edwards has about the same crossover appeal as Hillary Clinton – none. In this case, the explanation probably does have more to do with politics than personality, since no one seems to hate him. But I suspect that the main thing is that Republicans and independents don’t think much about him one way or the other. Obama gets all the publicity. He’s also more anodyne. Being anodyne and also, in most peoples' minds, black, he’s downright Oprah-ish. Thus, he’s the obvious choice.
Now I am tempted to say that crossover appeal is likely to matter less in this election than any other in recent memory because the Republican field -- and therefore the Republican candidate, whomever he turns out to be – is so pitiful that even the people who voted for Bush twice will have trouble voting for him. But I may be giving those people too much credit. If they could find it within themselves to turn the Bush family into a dynasty to rival the Adams Family, and if they can idolize a lazy, ignorant and patently reactionary actor (I’m referring to Reagan, not Fred Thompson), they’re capable of anything. But it’s still a leap from being capable of anything, to being capable of voting for a Rudy Giuliani or a Mitt Romney.
Anyway, supposing Scherer is right and that the trend holds, what does it tell us about Obama? Maybe just that if you’re well-launched and unthreatening, and if you don’t do or say much to tick people off or make them wary, you can slide into the White House (provided, of course, that our increasingly feckless capitalists find it convenient to back you or at least not block you). Or could it mean that Obama is a Clintonite without all the Clinton baggage. I suspect the latter.
Not long ago, it required the practiced eye of a fine jeweler to find a “center” between the Democratic “left” and the Republican “right.” But under Cheney and Bush, the inmates have taken over the asylum that the Republican Party has become. Is it all that surprising, then, that old-style Republicans, the Papa Doc Bush kind, would be tempted to crossover? But where to go? Clinton is damaged goods; Edwards is now the un-Republican. Obama might be too, though he’s more likely a Clintonite. The longer he remains a Rorschach test, the more crossover appeal he’ll be able to muster without, as they say, “alienating the (Democratic) base.” Whether this is a problem, depends on what Obama “really” is. Time will tell. I hope that it tells in time.
The only thing that is clear, for now, is that Democrats have unfailingly bad instincts when it comes to detecting electability. They would do better deferring to the judgment of Republicans and independents than relying, Bush-like, on their remarkably fallible “guts.” But then they should be careful of what they wish for – because they just might get it.
Of course, the general election is still far off, even if most of the primaries are not nearly as far off as they ought to be; and, with months to go even until the primaries, most likely voters have yet to focus on the candidates. But Scherer’s findings make sense. More people hate Hillary than hate any of the others. This has been true for as long as she’s been in the public spotlight. It is a somewhat puzzling phenomenon. No one just a shade to the left of “the vast right-wing conspiracy” has any cause to hate her for her politics; if they did, they’d have to hate their own politics too. Is it because she’s an uppity woman? That’s certainly part of it. But they’ve always hated her better half as much or more than they’ve hated her. There’s evidently something about that whole rotten dynasty wannabe. I think I know what it is: the Clintons are not just phonies; they’re slick phonies. There’s something about that that drives the hard right nuts. Diehard Republicans don’t mind bumpkins or dummies (so long as they don’t f…k up too badly). They don’t mind evil demons, like Cheney or Rove, provided they seem sincere. They don’t mind fools (e.g. Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzales and so on). They can even go for sanctimonious twits like Joe Lieberman. But slicksters set them off. It’s stupid, but you gotta take what you can get. If HRC is unelectable, even if the reasons why are silly or unfathomable or both, we can only be grateful. Otherwise, she might get elected. According to Scherer’s data, John Edwards has about the same crossover appeal as Hillary Clinton – none. In this case, the explanation probably does have more to do with politics than personality, since no one seems to hate him. But I suspect that the main thing is that Republicans and independents don’t think much about him one way or the other. Obama gets all the publicity. He’s also more anodyne. Being anodyne and also, in most peoples' minds, black, he’s downright Oprah-ish. Thus, he’s the obvious choice.
Now I am tempted to say that crossover appeal is likely to matter less in this election than any other in recent memory because the Republican field -- and therefore the Republican candidate, whomever he turns out to be – is so pitiful that even the people who voted for Bush twice will have trouble voting for him. But I may be giving those people too much credit. If they could find it within themselves to turn the Bush family into a dynasty to rival the Adams Family, and if they can idolize a lazy, ignorant and patently reactionary actor (I’m referring to Reagan, not Fred Thompson), they’re capable of anything. But it’s still a leap from being capable of anything, to being capable of voting for a Rudy Giuliani or a Mitt Romney.
Anyway, supposing Scherer is right and that the trend holds, what does it tell us about Obama? Maybe just that if you’re well-launched and unthreatening, and if you don’t do or say much to tick people off or make them wary, you can slide into the White House (provided, of course, that our increasingly feckless capitalists find it convenient to back you or at least not block you). Or could it mean that Obama is a Clintonite without all the Clinton baggage. I suspect the latter.
Not long ago, it required the practiced eye of a fine jeweler to find a “center” between the Democratic “left” and the Republican “right.” But under Cheney and Bush, the inmates have taken over the asylum that the Republican Party has become. Is it all that surprising, then, that old-style Republicans, the Papa Doc Bush kind, would be tempted to crossover? But where to go? Clinton is damaged goods; Edwards is now the un-Republican. Obama might be too, though he’s more likely a Clintonite. The longer he remains a Rorschach test, the more crossover appeal he’ll be able to muster without, as they say, “alienating the (Democratic) base.” Whether this is a problem, depends on what Obama “really” is. Time will tell. I hope that it tells in time.
The only thing that is clear, for now, is that Democrats have unfailingly bad instincts when it comes to detecting electability. They would do better deferring to the judgment of Republicans and independents than relying, Bush-like, on their remarkably fallible “guts.” But then they should be careful of what they wish for – because they just might get it.
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