Why I Think Obama Is Better For Israel

I did a post a while back on why I don't think we have any reason to doubt Obama's commitment to Israel. I said then that I would eventually like to do a post on why I think Obama is better for Israel. With 4 days until the election, I suppose there is no better time than now.

Now, I don't, in any way, doubt John McCain's commitment to the security of the State of Israel. He has a long record of support that I think we should be grateful for. Of course, it's easier to express support for Israel from the Congress, where you're one voice out of many, and don't have to make any real decisions. Presidents of both parties have campaigned with a strongly pro-Israel rhetoric and disappointed once in office. Not the least of these is George W. Bush. Jews, and other supporters of Israel, should not be so enthusiastic for another Republican after George Bush. Sure, all of his public statements are tremendously supportive, but behind the scenes, his proposals, like the Road Map, and the Annapolis Summit, have been the same kind of disastrous mistakes the Clinton administration made. (At least with Clinton, it hadn't been tried yet. Bush should have learned his lesson). His state department, through Condoleeza Rice, has been pushing Israel into all kinds of unsafe concessions, like removing security checkpoints, and dismantling settlements, in the name of peace, with absolutely not guarantees from the other side. I suspect either candidate running now, is likely to disappoint somewhat once they're in office. Most presidents do. But here is why I think Obama's overall worldview will be better.

First of all, while many of Israel's supporters were also strong supporters of the Iraq war, those really in the know, knew from the beginning it was a mistake. Iran was always a bigger threat to Israel than Iraq was. Attacking Iraq has strengthened Iran, and increased they're influence in the region. Of course that is all in the past. However, as long our troops remain paralyzed in Iraq, Iran will never take any threat from us seriously. Obama's plan to withdraw our troops from where they are not needed to allow them to refocus on our real threats, will give the United States greater leverage in the region. Furthermore, Obama's efforts to engage Iran in direct diplomacy will leave the Arab world unable to claim that the US is just an imperialist power trying to arbitrarily force its will on the region. If negotiations break down, and military action becomes necessary, we will have a much easier time convincing the rest of the world of the reality of the threat. If we rush in to another war, like John McCain wants to do, the anti-American sentiment in the region will get even greater, and recruitment for Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah will continue to rise.

Furthermore, I cannot exaggerate the importance to Israel of having an America that is respected by the world. Before George Bush, we were a moral leader. If we declared a war was necessary, other nations knew they could trust us. In the last eight years, we have become an object of derision the world over. They resent us for our power, but do not respect us. There has been no better terrorist recruiter than George Bush. John McCain has made it clear that, if there would be any change in his approach to foreign policy from that of George Bush, it would be to make it more militaristic. Obama clearly has the respect of the world, and with him as president, America has the opportunity to claim it's role as moral leader again. Since America is, and will remain, Israel's best and strongest ally, having America respected in the world, means that we will be taken seriously in our support for Israel, and Israel will consequently enjoy greater respect from the rest of the world (though I don't delude myself into thinking it will ever be anywhere near the level of support it gets from the United States).

Lastly, and, of course, I couldn't comment about this the last time I wrote about Obama and Israel, I want to stress the significance of Joe Biden versus Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin, by all accounts, is a supporter of Israel. She may even have had an Israeli flag in her office. Nothing in her response to the question about Israel in the debate gave me reason to doubt her sincerity. However, she clearly has no particularly deep understanding of the issues facing Israel, and what American policy should actually be, beyond this vague notion of "support." Joe Biden, on the other hand, has been a leader in supporting Israel in the Senate for 36 years, even longer than John McCain. Israel could not have a better friend in the vice-presidency than Joe Biden. His debate answer was not the vague expression of support we heard from Sarah Palin (and most other politicians, really), but a thorough critique of how the Bush administration has mishandled the situation, including the pushing for elections in Gaza that lead to Hamas' rise to power there. He made it clear that he will be driven by what is truly in Israel's best interests and not some abstract theory about how to reshape the Middle East. When he says that he would not have joined the ticket were he not absolutely convinced that Barack Obama supports Israel as strongly as he does, he has a record of support strong enough that he deserves to be taken seriously and seen as not just pandering. The fact that Obama showed that Biden is the kind of person he would like giving him advice on foreign policy is very reassuring to me, and should be similarly reassuring to all supporters of the Jewish State.

The McCain campaign and the Republican Jewish Coalition(RJC) have no argument other than their McCarthyite guilt-by-association charges. He once talked to/shook hands with/ate lunch with/went to church with someone who expressed some anti-Israel sentiment. The latest faux scandal they are trying to trump up seems to be about a toast Obama once made to Prof. Rashid Khalidi, who is on record supporting the PLO. Even from the text of the toast as reported by the LA Times, it seems that he essentially said he enjoys talking to him because he likes to hear views that differ from his own. Prof. Khalidi, as well, has said that Obama disagrees with him on just about everything related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yes Obama, clearly enjoys hearing views different from his own, as most mature, intelligent people do. But listening to someone, even being friends with them, in no way indicates agreement with their politics. I have many friends with different politics from my own, and I assume most readers of this do as well. The RJC may like to claim that he surrounds himself with anti-Israel people, but it just isn't true. He clearly has a couple of friends with anti-Israel views, but he also surrounds himself with Joe Biden, Dennis Ross, and a host of others with pro-Israel views. He is a mature, intelligent person, with a complex mind, who likes to hear different points of view, but nothing in his record indicates any reason to doubt that his own sympathies lie with the latter group.

Some Campaign Reflections and Thoughts on Redistribution

There really hasn't been much to say in the last month. Despite the intensity of the campaigning, not much new has been introduced. Just a lot of rehashing of the same silliness we've been hearing for the last two years. I think the most comical/scary moment has been John McCain's repeated condemnations of Barack Obama for not being willing to support nuclear power, "unless it's safe." What exactly he means by this, I'm not sure. I keep waiting for him to follow it up with, "I pledge to support nuclear power even if it's not safe." He never quite goes that far, but it's the clear implication. I'm don't exactly understand how anyone could be opposed to safety, and in fairness, he probably isn't, but it's kind of scary that he's trying to make a campaign issue out of this. I guess I'll just attribute it to silly season.

Then, there's this whole bit about redistribution of wealth. I'll admit "spread the wealth around" was probably a poor choice of words on Obama's part, given its popular associations with socialism, but his proposals really are anything but. Conservatives and Republicans like to throw around the word socialism anytime a liberal politician talks about helping the poor, but they seem to lack any real concept of what the word means. Socialism is defined by the collective (or government) ownership and control of the means of production. Under socialism, essentially, all private enterprise is eliminated, everything in the economy is centrally planned, and everyone is a public employee. What the Fed is currently doing with the banks comes closer to socialism than anything Obama is proposing. Obama clearly believes in capitalism and private enterprise. He just wants to make sure that system works for everyone. The beauty of capitalism is that people are supposed to be rewarded for their innovation and ingenuity. The problem is, the way the system is working now, some people are permanently shut out of that opportunity. By increasing access to education, by making sure anyone who's working full time can pay their medical bills and put food on the table for their family, we open up capitalist opportunities for more people. Liberalism, as it was once said (I don't remember by who), will save capitalism from the capitalists. Does this involve some amount of redistribution of wealth? Of course it does. The way the market has been working lately it has been rewarding all the wrong things. The government's responsibility is to create sensible regulations to make sure the right things are rewarded, so the economy can operate in a fair and equitable manner. If John McCain is really opposed to redistribution, he needs to scrap his health care plan, endorse a flat tax, call for the elimination of medicare and medicaid, and any other federal programs designed to help the poor. If not, he needs to tell us why he thinks Obama's redistribution scheme is somehow worse than the one he's proposing, because so far, it seems people just aren't buying it.

Economic Meltdown, Bailout and Why You Shouldn't Blame Wall Street

The economic situation we're currently in is arguably the worst it's been since the Great Depression. Let's examine the causes of this crisis. First, who isn't responsible?

1) Liberals. It's become popular in right-wing circles to spread the notion that liberals are actually the ones responsible for the mortgage-crisis because of their policies forcing banks to make loans to lower-income and minority families. An interesting argument. Unfortunately, for them, it isn't true. Presumably the legislation they're referring to is the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). As this article makes clear, there is no connection between the CRA and the current crisis. For those of you who don't want to read the whole article, let me summarize the main points. a) Only 25% of sub prime mortgages were made by banks that were even subject the the CRA. b) Even among those 25%, there's no evidence that the CRA loans have a higher default rate than the rest of their loans. c) The investment instruments that spread this bad mortgage debt around the whole economy had absolutely nothing to do with the CRA. d) The first sub prime mortgage was made 25 years after the CRA was first passed. Blaming the CRA is such a ridiculous argument that neither John McCain nor any bank executive has tried to make it, but never underestimate the power of the right-wing chatterboxes in convincing people that liberals are really responsible for all of their problems.

2) Wall Street Executives. This may seem counter intuitive to anyone listening to any politician talk about the meltdown lately, but Wall Street is not to blame. They were just doing what the rules of the game expected them to do. It's a classic prisoner's dilemma. For those of you not familiar, I'll fill you in. Two people are arrested. They each have to decide whether to stay silent or rat the other one out. If they both stay silent, they'll each get 6 months in prison. If they both rat each other out, they'll each get 30 years in prison. If one stays silent and the other rats him out, the ratter will go free, and the rattee will get life in prison. Assuming we are dealing with rational people who prefer less jail time to more, the only outcome we will ever get is that they'll both rat each other out and spend 30 years in jail. Even though they'd both be happier if they both stayed silent, absent any way to bind the other person to an agreement, there's no incentive for either one to remain silent. If I think you're going to remain silent, I should rat you out because free is better than 6 months. If I think you're going to rat me out, I should still rat you out, because 30 years is better than life. This is essentially how wall street works on a much bigger scale. It's the paradox of the free market. If you allow everyone maximum liberty to make the decision that most benefits him or her, you will almost inevitably wind up with an outcome where everyone winds up suffering. It's not fair to blame the people involved. True, they all would have been better off if they didn't make these risky investments, but if I choose unilaterally not to make these investments while everyone else still is, I'm just going to wind up in even worse shape. Another one of my favorite examples of this is the minimum wage. Every time congress raises the minimum wage, conservative economists start screaming about how it's going to put companies out of business and lead to huge unemployment, and yet this has never panned out. Why? Because even though minimum wages might drive up short term costs, in the long run they are good for the economy. When the people at the bottom, the people for whom every extra dollar translates to an increase in their quality of life, have more money, they spend more. They create more demand in the economy. Businesses sell more. Everyone benefits. However, one firm raising wages will never be sufficient to create that stimulus. Without the government mandating it, no company is going to unilaterally volunteer to increase their payroll costs. However, when the situation is required of everyone, everyone is better off.

So who is responsible for the current economic crisis? It should be obvious by now. It's not Wall Street and it's not liberal government policy. It's conservative government policy. I stress conservative and not Republican, because many of these conservative policies were passed with the full support of a large number of Democrats as well. It's the policies of deregulation that caused this mess. The false belief that the market will perform best if the government would just leave it alone. Adam Smith's contention that a completely unregulated market will work at maximum efficiency is true only in the highly idealized situation where competition is perfect, and no firm is large enough for their decisions to have an impact on any other firm. No real market actually works this way (and besides, efficiency doesn't necessarily equal fairness). If I had to put the blame on one person for the current economic mess, it would be Ronald Reagan. Not that I can point to any specific policy of his that caused it. However, he was the one who set the conservative trend in American economics in motion. He was the one who made deregulation the politically popular thing to do. If it weren't for Reagan, Bill Clinton never would have felt compelled to go along with deregulation to the extent he did, and George W. Bush never would have been able to muster the political will to push deregulation to new extremes.

So what's the solution to the crisis? Well, in the long run, the solution is liberalism. We need to reregulate the markets in a way that makes sense for the 21st century economy. Now, I'm not a socialist. I don't want to government running the entire economy. In general, I view competition as a good thing. It motivates innovation and can be of tremendous benefit to the consumer. In order for competition to work, companies do need the opportunity to make bad decisions and fail on account of them. However, the government needs to have an active role in preventing situations where the markets motivate everyone involved to act in destructive ways as it does now. I find it funny when Larry Kudlow on CNBC asks things like "Can the market survive the regulatory state of an Obama presidency?" He doesn't seem to get that the market can't survive without the regulatory state of an Obama presidency. A successful capitalist economy depends on liberal government policy. It shouldn't surprise anyone that historically, the market has performed considerably better under Democrats than Republicans. The Republicans like to frame it as class warfare, business versus the middle class. But the truth is when the middle class is doing well, businesses fare better also. Economic success percolates up, it doesn't trickle down.

What about in the short term? I think we have no choice but to go along with this bailout. It's not perfect, but we don't have time to work out something better. If we want capitalism to survive, the government needs to do something now to preventing the market from collapsing on itself. We should do it in a way that protects the investments of ordinary people and not just big business, but if we completely ignore business interests, ultimately the people will wind up suffering as well. The idea the House Republicans proposed of a government-run insurance company that banks could buy into to insure their mortgage debt, is not a bad idea in the long run. In fact, it's similar to the original function of Fannie Mae, in the days when it was a pure public utility, created as part of the New Deal. I hope they continue pushing the idea after the immediate crisis has subsided, because it's something I think we should very seriously consider. However, it's not a short term solution. Telling the banks to buy mortgage insurance after the debts have already gone bad is like telling the residents of New Orleans to buy flood insurance after Katrina has already hit. Insurance is a good way to prevent crisis, but not a good way to alleviate one already in progress. However, if we only remedy the short-term crisis, and not the long-term problems, that's a good recipe for another crisis in the not too distance future. The best hope we have left is to elect Barack Obama president with strong Democratic majorities in congress and pray that they live up to their mandate.

Debates

My apologies again for not writing for a while. I've been somewhat swamped with schoolwork, and not feeling well for some of the time. I want to briefly comment on the first debate before I do a longer post on the economic situation. I think if I were scoring the debate on points, John McCain won. Not a knockout punch, but I think he made his points marginally more convincingly, and was able to respond to more of what Obama said than Obama was able to respond to what he said. (Of course, a lot of his responses were dishonest, but most people watching the debate don't know that.) Obama had a decent performance, but I think there were a lot of missed opportunities where he could have hit back hard and didn't. Why then, do the polls show overwhelmingly that voters think Obama won? Obama came accross looking presidential, and McCain came across looking like a jerk. Obama was respectful, he addressed McCain directly, he looked him in the eye. McCain's points were laced with insults ("Senator Obama doesn't understand..."). He refused to address him directly at any point during the debate. He wouldn't even acknowledge when the two of them agreed. The McCain campaign has released and ad splicing together all the different times Obama said "I agree with John" during the debate, as if it was an endorsement. For most people watching the debate, Obama wasn't endorsing McCain, he was reaching out and trying to find common ground. How can McCain claim to the guy who can reach across the aisle and find common ground with the Democrats, when he can't even be respectful to his opponent in the race? So that's why Obama benefitted the most from this debate even though on points, McCain probably won.

Personality Cults and Double Standards

In my post on the Democratic Convention, I complained that it was too much of a Barack Obama personality cult and not enough about the issues. I should have held my fire. In comparison to the Republican Convention, the Democratic Convention was a veritable think tank. The Republican Convention was entirely personality cult. John McCain, war hero, maverick, reformer, country first. At least Obama's personal speech was heavy on policy details, even if the rest of the convention wasn't. Even McCain's own speech didn't talk a whole lot about policy. When he did, it was the same old, tired, worn-out conservative catch-phrases and platitudes that have gotten us into the mess we're in now. "Cut taxes", "smaller government". McCain promises to reform Washington, but can't cite a single example of how he will do so. He talks about government working for people, but the fact is that in order for government to work for people, it needs to be bigger and have a larger tax base to work from. The Republican myth that cutting taxes for the wealthy will someone help grow the economy and benefit everyone has never been put to the test better than in the last few years. The bottom has not benefited from this giveaway to the top, not even in a small trickle. Corporate profits are at record highs, while average wages are down, unemployment is up, inflation is up, and the dollar is weaker. The exact opposite of what Republicans predicted has happened, and yet they still try to cling to their notions.

It is true McCain has taken a handful of positions at odd with his party's base in the past (though most of his attempts have been unsuccessful), but he can't mention those now, because neither he nor the audience to which he was speaking currently supports any of those ideas. Absent any real meaning, "reform" has become just another empty word from politicians, just like they have accused Barack Obama of doing with "change." Obama responded to his critics with a convention speech heavy on the details of the kind of change he wants to bring, which you can agree or disagree with. McCain responded by playing up the personality cult even further.

It's not surprising that a party bereft of issues would play up personality. What is surprising is the double standard. After spending the summer derisively mocking Obama's so-called "celebrity" as if it were a sin to be popular they built out of their candidate exactly the kind of mythical figure they accuse the Democrats of doing with Obama. Could you imagine if speakers at the Democratic Convention had said things like, "Barack Obama's whole life has been leading up to the presidency," of "God created only one Barack Obama"? The McCain campaign and the media would have been all over their supposed messiah-complex. John McCain is the biggest political media celebrity there ever was. Without the press helping to disseminate his maverick image, John McCain never would be in the position he's in now. The press has been complicit in letting him grab the spotlight and use them to his advantage. His whole career has been a public relations stunt with no real substance. He gets his name on big, important bills, but won't take the steps necessary to ensure their passage. The media has bought into his self-crafted image wholeheartedly. And then he has his surrogates get up there and rail against the so-called "liberal media?" How dare he? The Republican Party clearly has nothing left but to lie about and distort their opponent's agenda, out of a desperate hope to somehow convince the voters that someone other than the Republicans are responsible for the disasters of the last eight years. After all, what could be a worse sin than standing in the way of the entitlement of their Chosen One?

Comparing Veepstakes Winners

When I first heard on Friday that McCain had picked Alaska governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate, my reaction was "What was he thinking?" They can't possibly use the attack anymore that Obama isn't experienced enough to be president, after picking a vice-president even less experienced than he is. The McCain campaign clearly decided that the experience argument wasn't working, and they'd have to make this an ideological campaign. Of course, this isn't the best year for the conservative ideology, which means they want to play a typical Rove-style God, guns, and gays campaign. Therefore, I suppose they wanted to pick an ultra-conservative to appease the base, but they still could have gone with Pawlenty, who is just as conservative, and with far more experience.

To those who would say that she's no worse than Obama, I would beg to differ. First of all, the district Obama represented in the state senate is considerably larger than Wasilla, Alaska. Furthermore, Obama has 4 years in the US Senate. That's 4 years on the Foreign Relations Committee, 4 years steeped in the issues important to the national political scene. He's already written numerous essays and a couple of books laying out his worldview and governing philosophy. While I do wish he had more experience, there is certainly enough information out there for the public to make an informed decision on whether they trust his judgment and find his worldview appealing. On Sarah Palin, there is nothing. She's governed a city of 7000 people, and one of the smallest states in the Union for a year and a half. None of that provides anyone with any idea of how she would approach Iraq, Russia, or China. From what I understand, she's done a decent job as governor (though one of her biggest accomplishments was raising taxes on oil companies, something John McCain has said he would oppose under all circumstances). Yet John McCain's claim that she reinforces his image as a reformer falls somewhat flat, given that after getting elected on a reformist, clean-government platform, a year and a half later she's already under an ethics investigation herself.

They obviously chose Palin over the more qualified candidates for one simple reason: she's a woman. (Though I still find it a little odd, given that off the top of my head I could probably name half a dozen Republican women more qualified than Palin.) They saw some of Hillary Clinton's supporters still not committed to Obama, and figured they could peel some of them away by putting a women on the ticket. Really, this is an incredibly condescending choice, and shows tremendous disrespect for the women of America. Do they really thing that Hillary Clinton's supporters (myself included) supported her only because of her anatomy/genome? Of course not. Sure we liked the idea of the first woman president, but we supported Hillary because she was a qualified candidate who stood up for the issues important to women (and men). The McCain-Palin ticket is against all the issues important to the women's movement. And I don't just mean abortion rights. They're against increasing access to contraception. They're against more funding for prenatal care and family leave. They're against requiring equal pay for equal work. The forces of the status quo, in their last ditch effor to prevent change, will offer some symbolic, yet meaningless, change, in order to convince people that real change is unnecessary. If McCain's people think Hillary's voters are going to vote someone who's both profoundly inexperienced, and stands for none of the issues they care about, simply because she's a woman, they've got another thing coming to them.

It's funny how McCain announced his pick of Sarah Palin, the most thoroughly unqualified choice for vice-president in recent history (a choice especially important given McCain's age), in front of a poster reading "Country First." By picking a choice with no qualification other than appealing to a particular demographic that he thinks could help him politically (whether or not it actually will), McCain has shows that he puts politics before country. Compare that with Obama's pick of Biden, who more than makes up for his lack of experience. Biden is clearly the most qualified person he could have chosen, with decades of experience and accomplishments in both foreign and domestic policy. The consummate foreign policy expert in the Democratic Party, and a real leader in the Senate. He could have gone with someone like Tim Caine, who might have helped him politically to win Virginia, but he chose to pick someone who's truly qualified to be president. So who really puts country first?

Unconventional Convention Thoughts

Sorry, it's been a while since I last posted, but news can get rather boring over the summer, and there just isn't much to say. I thought I should devote at least one post to my thoughts on the democratic convention. Overall, I think it was a fairly successful convention, but it could have been better. My critiques basically fall into 2 categories:

1) Too much talking about Obama. I felt they spent too much time praising Obama, and what a great guy he is, and not enough actually talking about issues, and the plans the Democratic platform has to offer for the country. I do think Barack Obama did this well in his own speech, but, in contrast, at the Kerry convention, there were a lot more speakers who really gave detailed policy addresses. I understand that since Obama is still a relatively unknown figure nationally, they needed who define him before the Republicans did, yet I think this could have been done in a way that seemed like less of a personality cult.

2) Not enough attacking McCain. Of course, every speaker said McCain is "more of the same." And how many times did we hear "votes like Bush 90% of the time?" But they should have been more personal in the attacks. None of the criticism for being like Bush will stick if they don't first tear down the image people still have of him as a maverick that he built up in the 2000 campaign. They needed to go after McCain as just another pandering politician, whose views drift with the winds of political convenience. The only speakers, who, I thought, really hammered this point were John Kerry and Bill Richardson. They should have done one of those biopics for John McCain, but highlight everything negative in his career. They should have brought up how he cheated on his wife while she was recovering from injuries after she waited for him patiently the 7 years he was a prisoner of war. The public needs to know that this guy's not only wrong on the issues, he's a real dirtbag. Another point is that in order not just to win this election but to help cement permanent Democratic majorities, they should have spent more time connecting Bush's failures, not just with personal incompetence, but with the failure of conservatism as an ideology. Bill Clinton brought this up, and so did Barack Obama, but they should have had everyone hammer this point home. Everyone talks about wanting to make this a respectful campaign, and reaching out to work with the other party to solve our problems. You can't work with the other party to solve our problems when the other party is the problem. Everything wrong with America today really can be summed up in one word: "conservatism." The only way we're going to fix it is by beating the Republicans into submission. And we're not going to do that by playing nice.

Flip-floppery, Pots, and Kettles

It seems, of late, any time the Obama campaign puts out a policy statement, whether it's on the war, on FISA, on guns, or what have you, the McCain camp finds some nuance of difference between it and some earlier statement to pounce on to portray Obama as flip-flopping, insincere, pandering, politically expedient, etc. The mainstream media always seems all too ready to buy into these talking points as fact. It simply isn't true though. Obama has not fundamentally shifted his position on any issue. To be sure, he may be emphasizing different aspects of his position to appeal to a general electorate than he did during the primaries, but all candidates do this. By saying his troop withdrawal plans could be updated due to the facts on the ground, he wasn't abandoning any pledge to have all troops out within 16 months. He's said his goal is to have combat forces out within 16 months, but he's said all along there could be variations on account of changing circumstances. Only George Bush insists (and thinks it demonstrates courage) on stubbornly plodding along with his original plan regardless of the actual facts on the ground. The major difference between Obama and McCain with regard to the war in Iraq, is Obama sees withdrawal of combat forces as a short-term goal, and McCain does not. Whether the actual withdrawal will take place is 14 months, 16 months, or 18 months is immaterial at this point.

On the FISA bill, I happen to disagree with Obama. I would have voted against the bill, but that does not make his position unprincipled. He made it clear that while he opposes immunity, he views this bill as the best compromise he could get. I don't agree. I think he could have pushed for better, but his judgment on the matter is still entirely consistent with what his position has been all along. The art of compromise, of knowing when to give up on getting something you want in order to get something else you want, is invaluable to any successful politician.

Regarding the supreme court cases about the death penalty and the right to bear arms, his support again represents no shift in his position. While he's spoken about limiting the usage of the death penalty, and making sure it's applied fairly, he's never been for abolishing the death penalty altogether. Furthermore, he's on record from his days as a law professor as believing the second amendment conveys an individual right to bear arms.

So what's actually going on here? It's a two-step process. First the McCain campaign and their accomplices in the mainstream media convert all of Obama's positions into some bizarre absolute. They find the least sensible way one could possibly frame the liberal agenda and pin that on Obama. Now, having successfully convinced everyone of his extremist positions, when he expresses the sensible, moderate positions, he's expressed all along, it follows that he must be flip-flopping. Makes sense, right? If you're as confused as I am, you just may be smarter than the mainstream media.

What really bothers me about this charge is not merely its fallaciousness. Political campaigns always distort the records of their opponents. That's to be expected. What bothers me the most isn't even the way the mainstream media complicitly goes along with it, reporting campaign talking points as if they were facts. The media's always had a love affair with John McCain. I'm not surprised. What bothers me the most is the sheer audacity of the charge. If ever there were a perfect instance of "The pot calling the kettle black," this is it. If you're going to accuse your opponent of flip-flopping you damn well be the textbook model of ideological purity. But John McCain has flip-flopped more than any candidate in recent history, taking whatever position was most politically convenient at any given time over the past 8 years. And these are not minor nuances of different or mere shifts in emphasis. He's been on both sides of many major issues, often at the same time. This includes for and against tax cuts. For and against torture. For and against the religious right. For and against FISA. For and against immigration reform. Frankly, the only position I'm sure John McCain believes in is that he really, really, really likes war.

Personally, I've never believed ideological purity is the best measure of a politician. It takes a lot more than ideological purity to get things done, and it's better to have an impure good ideology than a pure bad one. Minds do, and should change with time. It's far better, I think to judge a candidate based on what they're campaigning on now than on real or apparent inconsistencies with what they've said in the past. However, if the media insists on looking at the candidates through the prism of ideological purity, it's about time they turn it around and look at the candidate they love so dearly.

As a final note, the only good, I think, that can come of this excessive harping on flip-flopping is that if the electorate becomes convinced that both candidates are just typical politicians, this year typical Democrat ought to beat typical Republican by a landslide.

July 4 and True American Patriotism

In honor of our nation's Independence day I wanted to reflect on what it really means to be an American patriot. It seems that in the political arena, most of the time we hear talk about patriotism, it's coming from the right, specifically in the form of questioning the patriotism of those on the left. Ever since 9/11 (really ever since Viet Nam, but in a particularly intensified form since 9/11) the Republican party has tried (often successfully) to portray anyone who does not throw their full support behind their president in whatever he decides to do, as somehow unpatriotic, disloyal or siding with the terrorists. But while Republicans may talk about patriotism a lot, I often wonder if they have any idea what really means. For them, it seems to be about wrapping yourself in the flag, being prepared to die for you country good or bad, and having unquestioning trust that George Bush can keep us safe. I don't think John McCain is lying when he says he loves America, but what does loving America mean when you are preaching the same blind jingoism that runs counter to everything America was founded on? What does in mean to say you love America, when at the same time are preaching that the president should violate and shred the Constitution of the United States with impunity? Faith in one's country without any logical reason has been seen before in history, and typically bears the name fascism. Real patriotism is about a love of the values this country was founded on, and a desire to constantly force the country to be even truer to its own values. This of course, includes criticizing America when it deviates from them. Under President Clinton, America used its army with moral purpose. We were a respected leader in the world. Since Bush took office, America is seen as greedy and imperialist, with only its narrow self-interests in mind. The Republican party has stripped America of its moral standing and moral authority, and McCain preaches nothing but more of the same. How would we plausibly be believed to be promoting freedom and liberty abroad when we're actively trying to undermine it back home? How can we tell other countries about government being accountable to the people when our own government has done everything it can to avoid accountability? Yes, I think the crimes of our current government amount to no less than treason, and John McCain, for supporting them, is an aider and abettor. It's about time Democrats stop responding to attacks on their patriotism, with meek "We're patriotic too," defenses. We should go out on the offense, tell people what the flag really stands for, and remind people just how unpatriotic the Republicans have been. Is Barack Obama the perfect candidate? Of course not. But at least he knows what it means to be a patriot.

Wesley Clark, Military Service, and the Presidency

The latest media-contrived controversy du jour seems to be surrounding Gen. Wesley Clark's comments on Face the Nation this past Sunday that supposedly impugn John McCain's patriotism and seek to discredit his military record. Even the Obama campaign has already started to distance themselves from the comments on the grounds that they would never question another candidate's patriotism. However, looking at the comments, Gen. Clark did nothing of the sort. All he said was that getting shot down is not a qualification to be president, and that being in a non-decision-making position in the military does not indicate you have a better understanding of foreign policy. He didn't call him a babykiller. This wasn't a Swift-Boat type attack that tried to undermine his valor in uniform. He acknowledged that McCain is an American hero. He just reminded us that it takes more than being a hero to be a good president. There ought not to be anything controversial in his comments. I've been saying these things for months. Of course we respect and honor what McCain went through in Viet Nam, but serving with valor does not qualify you to be president. As the McCain and Obama campaigns criticize these remarks, what are they trying to say? That they feel being shot down is a qualification to be president? If that's the case, Obama might as well drop out of the race and endorse McCain.

The funniest thing, I think, about Gen. Clark's comments is that he seemed to be offering more of an explanation for him to be president, than for Obama to be president. After all, for all of McCain's lack of real foreign policy credentials, Obama doesn't exactly have them either. Neither candidate has ever been in a decision-making position when it comes to foreign policy. I suppose Clark was probably trying to do this as a clever ploy to get himself picked as vice president. Judging from the Obama campaign's reaction, it seems to have backfired, though unfairly so. I've already given my opinion about a Clark vice presidency in the last post and I won't say any more about that now.

Four years ago, John Kerry tried to play up his valiant service in Viet Nam as giving him strong foreign policy credentials. Let's hope this tactic works as well for McCain as it did for Kerry. The fact is, military people have a mixed record as presidents, just like non-military people. After all, all of McCain's so-called experience gave him neither the clairvoyance to appreciate the dangers of the war in Iraq, the intelligence to understand who our enemies are and how they think, or the judgment to know when to use force and when to use diplomacy. Obama has shown himself smarter and better prepared on all of these issues despite his short resume. The last 4 elections have each pitted a candidate who served in the military against one who didn't. Each time the one who didn't one. This time around, at least, let's hope that trend continues.

Veepstakes

I don't want to spend to much time on veepstakes speculation as it really is just that: speculation. However, I thought I'd make one brief post to stick my two cents into this. It seems lately that polls and the media are already playing off each other to try and frame this election in terms of the conventional paradigm of Republicans are strong on national security and Democrats are strong on the economy. As the theory goes, whichever of these issues ranks of higher importance in voters' minds on election day will determine who wins. Now, this might have been a plausible paradigm in 1992 when president George H. W. Bush had just fought a successful war in Iraq, but the economy was slipping into recession. It's absurd though, that after 8 years of dubya, anyone could still believe the Republicans are stronger on national security. What have 8 years brought us? A war in Iraq with no end in sight, 4,000 US troops dead (more than were killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11), Al Qaeda growing ever stronger, Iran exerting more influence than ever over the region and coming ever closer to developing nuclear weapons, a North Korea that is reportedly selling nuclear weapons technology to Syria, a Hamas-led government in the Palestinian territories. This administration has been a disaster on national security and McCain offers more the same. If ever there has been a year for Democrats to win the election on national security issues, this is it. And yet, perhaps owing to the length of their respective resumes in the area, the press insists on continuing to portray McCain as strong on national security and Obama as weak. This is why I think Obama needs to pick a running mate with strong, bona fide, national security credentials. Someone who can, and will, forcefully make the case that the Democrats are stronger on national security than the Republicans are. The obvious choices would be Joe Biden, Wesley Clark, Jim Webb, or Sam Nunn. Sam Nunn is probably too old. Jim Webb, while he's obviously been a strong critic of the war in Iraq, I'm not really convinced he shares the basic overall philosophies of the Democratic Party. Between Biden and Clark, though I like them both, and I think they would both be strong picks, my preference goes with Biden. In addition to his national security credentials as chairman of the foreign relations committee, he also brings a long record of accomplishments in Washington, something else Obama is lacking. He will be able to provide president Obama with vital assistance in how to actuallly accomplish things in a city resistant to change.

Perhaps, in the end, Democrats will not be able to claim national security as their issue. There are many people who automatically associate militaristic with strong and non-militaristic with weak. For the good of the country, I hope this is the year Americans finally learn that isn't true. Picking Joe Biden would certainly go a long way towards making that happen.

Post-partisanship and a New Kind of Politics

There seems to be a lot of talk lately about a new kind of politics; of moving to a post-partisan era where we don't think about what party we belong to, only about what is best for America. On the surface, this naturally seems like a wonderful idea. Of course politicians should focus on doing what is best for America. The problem is, more often than not, trying to push for a new kind of politics before you're in office means ensuring you will lose. Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry all lost for this reason. They insisted on taking the high road; on sticking to talking about issues and not responding to personal attacks. You can't change the system if you're not in office, and you can't get in office if you won't play the game as it works now. Taking the high road when you're still a candidate amounts to unilateral disarmament against your opponent. The great irony is Barack Obama, the candidate who talks the most overtly about a new kind of politics is probably a more conventional politician than most Democratic candidates we've seen in quite a while, with the exception of Bill Clinton. And from what I can tell so far, he's a damn good one. He's been effectively hitting back, and hitting back hard every time he's attacked. He made the right decision in forgoing the public funding. Taking it would be a good way to ensure he will lose. The overwhelming advantage he'll get in the fall from all the extra money will more than outweigh getting a few days of bad press for the decision now. And of course, one has to admire the way he played the race card during the primaries and managed to blame the Clintons for it. As a Clinton supporter, I really feel no animosity towards him for this. He played the same game we were and he beat us at it. He earned the right to be our party's nominee, and hopefully he'll run as strong a campaign against McCain as he did against us.

The other major problem with post-partisanship (what we used to call bipartisanship) is what exactly does it mean? Obviously, I want a candidate who puts America first, and if the Democratic party does something wrong is not afraid to stand up and say it. However, I hear a lot of conservative pundits saying that he needs to break with the mainstream of the Democratic party on some issue to show that he's post-partisan. This is absurd. If the Democratic party platform has the right ideas for America, why should a candidate take a stand against it, just to show their post-partisanship? That would be just as bad and not taking a stand against the platform if it is wrong. I'm all for bipartisanship if it means working together with Republicans who decide they want to do what's right and join the Democratic party on any one of its issues. However, if it means having to put together a compromise agenda where each party gets half of what they want, why should I agree to that? The Republican party, as a whole, has been on the wrong side of every issue for the last 60 years. Let's just look at what the Republican ideas are at the present. A never-ending war in Iraq, giving the executive branch unlimited power to ignore the constitution during wartime, cutting taxes even more for the people who need it least, leaving tens of millions of men, women and children without health care, offering fewer veterans' benefits. Not one of these is a good idea. Right now the best way for Democratic politicians to do what's best for America isn't to reach out to compromise with Republicans, it's to beat them into submission. As a friend of mine's father once put it, "I never understood the point of moderation. Who wants to be half way between right and wrong?"

I find it mildly comical that we have two candidates who both appear committed to this "new kind of politics" and are both clearly poised to run one of the most conventional dirty campaigns we've seen. John McCain, I don't think, ever believed in the new kind of politics. For him, and the rest of the Republicans, it's just a tool to bludgeon the Democrats with and make sure the Republicans can continue to win elections ensuring the change to the political system never happens. Barack Obama, I think, deep down does believe we need to fix the way politics works in Washington. However, he realizes that nothing will get fixed if he loses, and so he's not going to make the mistakes of his predecessors and unilaterally disarm against the Republican attack machine. And thank God for that.

More McCain Idiocy on Iran

I just noticed this, and it's great. In his speech to AIPAC last week, John McCain had this to say about Obama's willingness to negotiate with our enemies:

"We hear talk of a meeting with the Iranian leadership offered up as if it were some sudden inspiration, a bold new idea that somehow nobody has ever thought of before."

The funny thing is the Obama campaign has never tried to portray it as a "sudden inspiration" or "bold new idea". They've constantly pointed out that it's the same approach to foreign policy employed by presidents across the political spectrum from John Kennedy to Ronald Reagan. Until now, I thought the McCain line was going to be portraying Obama as a dangerous radical, but now it seems as if he has acknowledged that Obama's view has represented the mainstream foreign policy consensus for decades. In doing so, he has all but acknowledged that his own "war is the only answer" approach is the one offering the radical departure from how diplomacy has traditionally been conducted. It's time for the press to stop portraying this guy as a moderate and tell the American people just how dangerous he is.

Appeasement

I know it's a little bit late already, but I really wanted to discuss this.
Bush's speech to the the Knesset was overall a beautiful speech, and I don't generally have too many kind words to say about Bush. However, his unfortunate comments about appeasement were truly a disgrace. When a president of the United States is visiting a foreign country, they are a representative of our country, not of their political party, and it is simply not the place to be making partisan political points. I will grant it's not entirely clear he was talking about Barack Obama. He may, for instance, have been talking about Jimmy Carter. However, anyone who's been around politics long enough is aware that "There are those" is always code for "My political opponents" in a way that can give you plausible deniability when accused of negative campaigning and put your opponents on the defensive.

Beyond the disgrace of politicizing a speech to a foreign government is the sheer factual inaccuracy of the comment. We can argue over the wisdom of talking with our enemies (and I will address this shortly), but equating it with the appeasement of Hitler is just not true. When we talk about the Munich conference, the appeasement was not in the fact that we were talking to Hitler, it was in the fact that we gave him parts of Czechoslovakia. The real irony in all this, is that when it come to his policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Bush has been one of the worse appeasers of all time. Sure, he'll make real tough speeches, and have his minions on the right go out and deliver talking points about he's the best friend Israel has ever had, and how the Democrats can't be trusted, but his actions simply do not match his rhetoric. In the face of Palestinian terrorism, Bush and his administration have continuously pressured Israel to remove security fences, stop settlement growth, and remove checkpoints at border crossings as "gestures of good faith." Well, while talking with terrorists might not be appeasement, gestures of good faith to them certainly are. Whatever decline there's been in terrorism is certainly not the result of Bush's policies, but of Ariel Sharon's wisdom in ignoring them.

But what about this issue of talking itself? I must say, when I first heard the idea, I was skeptical. As I've said before, I was a Clinton supporter, and was far more sympathetic to her position. However, the more I've researched the idea, the more I like it. As others have already pointed out numerous times, there really is nothing radical in the proposal. Presidents from Kennedy to Nixon to Reagan met with the leaders of China or the Soviet Union. (As an aside, if John McCain thinks Iran is a bigger threat than the Soviet Union was, he's either delusional, or has no understanding of foreign policy, or as I suspect, both. The Soviet Union had nuclear weapons. Iran is only trying to get them. I will grant that if they ever actually got them, they could be more dangerous than the Soviet Union was, but currently they're not even close.) The one thing else I'd like to add is that Obama's proposal really reminds me of the aphorism of one of John McCain's political heroes, Teddy Roosevelt. "Speak softly and carry a big stick." The military option's always on the table, and when you go in to negotiate, you make sure they know that, and then you see what concessions you can get out of them. You may get nothing, and have to resort to military actions, but there's nothing lost by talking to them first. As Joe Biden astutely pointed out, "Talking to someone doesn't mean we're giving up our ability to say no to them."

Some people seem to be worried that talking to someone grants them legitimacy. First of all, I don't think it's true. Talking to an enemy doesn't make them any less our enemy. Second of all, I don't think nations like Iran care very much about legitimacy from the US. These people would have you believe that while these nations talk about destroying us, the thing they really seek is our approval. If they cared in the least about our approval, the would have abandoned their bellicose ways a long time ago. Now obviously, if we want to maximize our hope of getting concessions from them, there needs to be significant preparation before the presidential meeting, and Obama has made it clear he would make those. I'm reasonably certain those kinds of lower level meetings are going on even now. They usually happen in secret. One more caveat I should add is I do think there's a different between a President Obama meeting with Iran, and Jimmy Carter meeting with Hamas. First of all, negotiations have to be done with an official representative of the government. Second of all, negotiating with your own enemies is one thing, but going behind your ally's back to negotiate with their enemies without them being involved, could really undercut their position.

Now John McCain at least has been consistent with his position on this issue most of the time. This is the man who criticized Bill Clinton in 1994 for making a deal with North Korea instead of attacking them. The man has no tolerance for evil in the world and thinks the only appropriate response is to destroy it militarily. There's a certain quixotic nobility to the position. I wish we could just destroy all evil in the world too. However, we're not all-powerful and it isn't a world of absolutes. Sometimes we need to cut deals with people we don't like to get the lesser of 2 evils. This certainly seems preferable to all out war with North Korea. The more I listen to the candidates, the more I am convinced that Obama understands the realities of the world and offers a progressive, pragmatic approach for dealing with them, whereas John McCain's approach is "simplistic" and "dangerously naive."