The Long Run - As a Professor, Obama Enthralled Students and Puzzled Faculty - Series - NYTimes.com

NYTimes.com:

"“On the national level, bipartisanship usually means Democrats ignore the needs of the poor and abandon the idea that government can play a role in issues of poverty, race discrimination, sex discrimination or environmental protection,” Mr. Obama said."...

Nor could his views be gleaned from law review articles or other scholarship; Mr. Obama has never published any. He was too busy, but also, Mr. Epstein believes, he was unwilling to put his name to anything that could haunt him politically, as Ms. Guinier’s writings had hurt her.

“He figured out, you lay low,” Mr. Epstein said.

Bill Moyers on Wright and Obama

...Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy; this is wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.

Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettle some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. We are often exposed us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this ? this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner before our very eyes. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".

Rev. Wright in a different light

chicagotribune.com:

By William A. Von Hoene Jr.

During the last two weeks, excerpts from sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., pastor for more than 35 years at Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side, have flooded the airwaves and dominated our discourse about the presidential campaign and race. Wright has been depicted as a racial extremist, or just a plain racist. A number of political figures and news commentators have attempted to use Sen. Barack Obama's association with him to call into question Obama's judgment and the sincerity of his commitment to unity.

I have been a member of Trinity, a church with an almost entirely African-American congregation, for more than 25 years. I am, however, a white male. From a decidedly different perspective than most Trinitarians, I have heard Wright preach about racial inequality many times, in unvarnished and passionate terms.

In Obama's recent speech in Philadelphia on racial issues confronting our nation, the senator eloquently observed that Rev. Wright's sermons reflect the difficult experiences and frustrations of a generation.

It is important that we understand the dynamic Obama spoke about.

It also is important that we not let media coverage and political gamesmanship isolate selected remarks by Wright to the exclusion of anything else that might define him more accurately and completely. ...

NO MORE DRAMA, ELECT OBAMA!

The Return of Obama Girl (PG-13)

An unanticipated endorsement

Doug Kmiec is a very prominent --and quite conservative--law professor, who has served in senior legal positions in Republican administrations and is a frequent "talking head" representing Republican and conservative positions. This is one of the more surprising endorsements of this topsy-turvy political season. The question, I suppose, is whether this will result in any sober second thoughts in the progressive community. I rather doubt it. I do wonder if this is an unanticipated fruit of Obama's speech on race in America.

Today I endorse Barack Obama for president of the United States. I believe him to be a person of integrity, intelligence and genuine good will. I take him at his word that he wants to move the nation beyond its religious and racial divides and to return United States to that company of nations committed to human rights. I do not know if his earlier life experience is sufficient for the challenges of the presidency that lie ahead. I doubt we know this about any of the men or women we might select. It likely depends upon the serendipity of the events that cannot be foreseen. I do have confidence that the Senator will cast his net widely in search of men and women of diverse, open-minded views and of superior intellectual qualities to assist him in the wide range of responsibilities that he must superintend.

This endorsement may be of little note or consequence, except perhaps that it comes from an unlikely source: namely, a former constitutional legal counsel to two Republican presidents. The endorsement will likely supply no strategic advantage equivalent to that represented by the very helpful accolades the Senator has received from many of high stature and accomplishment, including most recently, from Governor Bill Richardson. Nevertheless, it is important to be said publicly in a public forum in order that it be understood. It is not arrived at without careful thought and some difficulty.

As a Republican, I strongly wish to preserve traditional marriage not as a suspicion or denigration of my homosexual friends, but as recognition of the significance of the procreative family as a building block of society. As a Republican, and as a Catholic, I believe life begins at conception, and it is important for every life to be given sustenance and encouragement. As a Republican, I strongly believe that the Supreme Court of the United States must be fully dedicated to the rule of law, and to the employ of a consistent method of interpretation that keeps the Court within its limited judicial role. As a Republican, I believe problems are best resolved closest to their source and that we should never arrogate to a higher level of government that which can be more effectively and efficiently resolved below. As a Republican, and the constitutional lawyer, I believe religious freedom does not mean religious separation or mindless exclusion from the public square.

In various ways, Senator Barack Obama and I may disagree on aspects of these important fundamentals, but I am convinced based upon his public pronouncements and his personal writing that on each of these questions he is not closed to understanding opposing points of view, and as best as it is humanly possible, he will respect and accommodate them.

No doubt some of my friends will see this as a matter of party or intellectual treachery. I regret that and I respect their disagreement. But they will readily agree that as Republicans, we are first Americans. As Americans, we must voice our concerns for the well-being of our nation without partisanship when decisions that have been made endanger the body politic. Our president has involved our nation in a military engagement without sufficient justification or clear objective. In so doing, he has incurred both tragic loss of life and extraordinary debt jeopardizing the economy and the well-being of the average American citizen. In pursuit of these fatally flawed purposes, the office of the presidency, which it was once my privilege to defend in public office formally, has been distorted beyond its constitutional assignment. Today, I do no more than raise the defense of that important office anew, but as private citizen.

9/11 and the radical Islamic ideology that it represents is a continuing threat to our safety and the next president must have the honesty to recognize that it, as author Paul Berman has written, "draws on totalitarian inspirations from 20th-century Europe and with its double roots, religious and modern, perversely intertwined. . . .wields a lot more power, intellectually speaking, then naïve observers might suppose." Senator Obama needs to address this extremist movement with the same clarity and honesty with which he has addressed the topic of race in America. Effective criticism of the incumbent for diverting us from this task is a good start, but it is incomplete without a forthright outline of a commitment to undertake, with international partners, the formation of a world-wide entity that will track, detain, prosecute, convict, punish, and thereby, stem radical Islam's threat to civil order. I await Senator Obama's more extended thinking upon this vital subject, as he accepts the nomination of his party and engages Senator McCain in the general campaign discussion to come.

Posted Sunday, March 23, 2008 9:18 AM by Doug Kmiec

Obama's faith in the reasoning abilities of the American public

Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com:

"The entire premise of Barack Obama's candidacy is built upon the opposite assumption -- that Americans are not only able, but eager, to participate in a more elevated and reasoned political discourse, one that moves beyond the boisterous, screeching, simple-minded, ugly, vapid attack-based distractions and patronizing manipulation ... that has dominated our political debates for the last two decades at least.

Nobody actually knows which of these views are right because there hasn't been a serious national campaign in a very long time that has attempted to elevate itself above the Drudgian muck by relying (not entirely, but mostly) upon reasoned discourse and substantive discussions ... Obama's insistence that Americans are hungry for that sort of elevated debate and are able to engage it -- and his willingness to stake his campaign on his being right about that -- has been, in my view, one of the most admirable aspects of his candidacy.

But in Obama's faith in the average American voter lies one of the greatest weaknesses of his campaign. His faith in the ability and willingness of Americans to rise above manipulative political tactics seems drastically to understate both the efficacy of such tactics and the deafening amplification they receive from our establishment press. Even Americans who authentically believe that they want a "new, better politics" may be swayed by the same old Drudgian sewerage because it is powerful and ubiquitous. ...

Obama and Race

New York Times: Nick Kristof:

"Many well-meaning Americans perceive Mr. Wright as fundamentally a hate-monger who preaches antagonism toward whites. But those who know his church say that is an unrecognizable caricature: He is a complex figure and sometimes a reckless speaker, but one of his central messages is not anti-white hostility but black self-reliance.

“The big thing for Wright is hope,” said Martin Marty, one of America’s foremost theologians, who has known the Rev. Wright for 35 years and attended many of his services. “You hear ‘hope, hope, hope.’ Lots of ordinary people are there, and they’re there not to blast the whites. They’re there to get hope.”

Professor Marty said that as a white person, he sticks out in the largely black congregation but is always greeted with warmth and hospitality. “It’s not anti-white,” he said. “I don’t know anybody who’s white who walks out of there not feeling affirmed.”"

Cartoonish political discourse

Talking Points Memo |: From Greg Sargent

"Obama's speech, throughout, asks its listeners to transcend themselves -- it asks them to choose nuance over cartoonish political controversy; it asks them to acknowledge stuff about race they don't want to acknowledge; it asks them to think big instead of small."...

"Obama is basically demanding here that the practitioners of our political discourse do better. It's a challenge to the commentators and to the rival campaigns, of course. But the Ferraro reference suggests that it's also a challenge that some of his own supporters should take as directed at them, too. To not do this would be at odds with the true spirit of his remarks."

Interesting perspective to juxtapose with other remarks on Ferraro, including my own, found below.

Yesterday's Daily Show did a great job lampooning how the mainstream broadcasters responded (that is, failed to respond) to Obama's invitation to serious adult conversation about the subject of race in America--or to serious adult conversation on virtually any matter of substantive consequence.

It is certainly clear that lots of our fellow citizens much prefer "cartoonish political controversy." Jon Stewart looked, ever so briefly, like he might be close to tears.

Lets Talk About Race

New York Times Blog: From Andrew Sullivan:

"I have never felt more convinced that this man’s candidacy - not this man, his candidacy - and what he can bring us to achieve - is an historic opportunity. This was a testing; and he did not merely pass it by uttering safe bromides. He addressed the intimate, painful love he has for an imperfect and sometimes embittered man. And how that love enables him to see that man’s faults and pain as well as his promise. This is what my faith is about. It is what the Gospels are about. This is a candidate who does not merely speak as a Christian. He acts like a Christian."

Sounds right for my team as well.

Althouse, Ferraro, Race, and Obama

My colleague Ann Althouse is mostly down on Obama's speech, and her very active blog has been widely quoted on the subject. That is not the first time Ann and I have disagreed, sometimes profoundly. She has just posted a response to Obama from Geraldine Ferraro (much offended by the implicit comparison of her to Jeremiah Wright, which I kind of thought served her right).

Many of Ann's fans (from what I can tell, mostly pretty right-wing, at least by my standards) commenting on her blog post go even further in their often tasteless and ill-informed critiques of both Wright (who isn't finding many fans outside the African-American community these days) and Obama (including, but not limited to, his speech on racism in America).

At risk of ruining my reputation among some feminist friends and allies (my long-suffering wife is long familiar with my views on Ms Ferraro), I'll cross-post my comment (with very slight editing, and in more telegraphic and less fully developed form than most of my postings here) from Ann's blog:

Geraldine Ferraro is in deep denial.

I'm not sure she has much of a reputation left, except as a gimmicky footnote to history. Clearly there was little to recommend her, beyond her gender, for the Vice Presidential nomination in 1984 (and can one imagine her as qualified for the Presidency/Commander-in-Chiefdom? What might she come out with at 3am?)

Ms Ferraro would do well to shut up post-haste. (When you are stuck in a deep hole, at least stop digging.)

More generally, I fear that many of the comments on the Rev. Wright show little or no appreciation for the realities of black life in America, or the historic functioning and role of black churches. While I would not choose to defend all of Wright's statements, and they are certainly problematic in the context of a political campaign (where, as Michael Kinsley reminds us, a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth), the nature and extent of the right wing reaction (especially given Obama's own sharply different political and oratorical style, temperament, and clear repudiation of many of Wright's most obnoxious remarks) betrays a willful ignorance of the realities of prejudice and discrimination in American history, including that of our own time.

Obama stated that racism is America's original sin. Those tempted to deny that truth refuse to confront the hard realities of our history.

I would add here that Rev. Wright provides a form of succor for his suffering community. I, and most whites, are not his intended audience, and, I strongly suspect, are ill-prepared to understand the meaning his followers take from his fiery sermons, which may well be more emotive than literal.

As statements from preachers go (I would include some ultra-Orthodox, and ultra-chauvinistic rabbis in their company), I'm not sure the Rev. Wright's are among the most offensive. My G!d does not inflict 9/11 on America in response to gay rights or reproductive freedom, or visit the Holocaust on European Jewry for defects in their mezuzahs or tefillin (or their acceptance of the European Enlightenment). If anything, I, with Lincoln, am more inclined to recognize a G!d whose justice would entail suffering for America's sins of slavery and racism, and for our neglect of the poor.

Obama offers what may be a way out and beyond, toward possible racial healing and reconciliation, and the continued perfection of our imperfect union.

What could be more important?

Who could do it better?

Wish fulfillment

I guess it is only fair to spill the beans.
Perhaps some of my enthusiasm for Obama's speech is understandable in light of this message I sent to my son on March 16:

Hi son.
Here's something that maybe we could work on together.
Basic idea: a speech by Barack on identity politics.
In the speech, Barack should address, very candidly, the issues of identity politics going on in the race and the need to move beyond them.
(This would be analogous to JFK on Catholics and much better than Romney on religion).
He should reject all the anti-woman, misogynistic crap that has been aimed at Hillary (iron my shirt) and insist that his supporters reject and oppose any such stuff.
He should acknowledge the complexity of his own makeup. He should explain the anger and resentment in much of the black community and the historical reasons for it, talk about progress that has been made and is yet to be made, and argue that we go forth best by trying to recognize the complex and painful history of race (and perhaps gender) in America and work together to heal and to progress.
He should acknowledge the many strands in his own personal history, including the influence of his experience in the Muslim world and his belief that in both policy and in his person, he would embody a different approach to the world, a willingness to meet and talk and listen, and for America to provide moral leadership (in a respectful way) in tackling the problems of environment, of poverty, of resentment, that lead to hostility against the United States and fuel recruitment of terrorists...Reject the culture of death, create realistic hopes that feed the desire to live, build, create a better world ...
It is difficult to be the target of racist assaults and personal attacks, but he is determined not to give in to temptation to strike back in kind, but to commit to tackling big issues facing America and the world, to include the American people in a deeper consideration of the challenges facing us and how, with some particulars, we can work together to address these challenges.

What do you think?
Love you, abba

Further Reflections on Obama's Speech

The speech is over, and I am now back from a medical appointment.

By my lights, the speech may have gone on a tad too long, and the middle portion descended from the oratorical heights of the prologue. Maybe a necessary compromise to address some grungy political realities. The end was strong.

The immediate commentaries were idiotic. Wolf Blitzer on how the speech will "play" with this constituency or that, and whether it will solve Obama's Jeremiah Wright problem. Some others calling this an excellent speech, but wondering whether it will make white audiences uncomfortable. The broadcast punditocracy is predictably pedestrian.

But a few voices, mainly from black commentators, recognizing the historic importance of the speech, and of the moment--this speech transcends Pennsylvania, the nomination, politics. Someone has finally talked to America with truth and candor and hope about the realities of our history and our lives

If America does not rally to Obama after this speech, we deserve what we get. This nation twice elected (more or less, sort of) George W. Bush to the Presidency. Are we capable of better?

To Move a Nation: Live Blogging Obama in Philadelphia

Barack Obama is still speaking.

I don't know what others will have to say.

For me, this is, simply speaking, a transcendent moment in the history of American democracy.

No one in my lifetime offers Obama's potential to bring Americans together to heal America's most profound ills and narrow the gap between the deeply flawed realities of our time and our most profound ideals and aspirations.

With this speech, Obama takes his place with Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King among the most resonant and enduring voices of America. This is the most important speech since "I Have a Dream." It far exceeds, in both depth and truth, candidate JFK's celebrated 1960 speech on his Catholicism.

Obama on Israel and Jews

There is a lot of trash and slime circulating on the internet regarding Obama's attitudes toward Islam, Israel, and Jews. In the past couple of days, I have received a couple of personally addressed emails, of the form "I saw this on the internet and wondered if it were accurate/ if it were fair/ what you think about this...", followed by what seems to be to constitute hate speech insinuating that Obama is some kind of Manchurian candidate who will do various dastardly things. The claims are so preposterous on their face, and so easy to disprove with a minimum of research, that it is hard not to suspect the motives of those who send such crap around.

I am saddened that some of these hate messages have been attributed to various Jewish groups, including some kind of Republican Jewish group. I am in the process of trying to track this down, and cannot at this point know whether these attributions are correct.

In response, various collections of Obama's statements on Israel are also circulating. Some of these follow the formulaic AIPAC line to a degree that I, as an ally of Israel's peace camp (Peace Now, New Israel Fund, etc.) find them rather unsatisfying both politically and intellectually. However, there is some evidence of more thoughtful views on Obama's part. Here is an excerpt from a recent Obama speech before a Jewish audience, quoted on Nick Kristof's NYT blog:

"...one of the things that struck me when I went to Israel was how much more open the debate was around these issues in Israel than they are sometimes here in the United States. It’s very ironic. I sat down with the head of Israeli security forces and his view of the Palestinians was incredibly nuanced because he’s dealing with these people every day. There’s good and there’s bad, and he was willing to say sometimes we make mistakes and we made this miscalculation and if we are just pressing down on these folks constantly without giving them some prospects for hope, that’s not good for our security situation. There was a very honest, thoughtful debate taking place inside Israel. All of you, I’m sure, have experienced this when you travel there. Understandably, because of the pressure that Israel is under, I think the U.S. pro-Israel community is sometimes a little more protective or concerned about opening up that conversation. But all I’m saying though is that actually ultimately should be our goal, to have that same clear eyed view about how we approach these issues...."

This is very true, and suggests that Obama's understanding is considerably more subtle and nuanced than the uncritical blather that he and most high level American politics are forced to regurgitate on most occasions. I think such an understanding, and the courage to speak it before a Jewish audience, are conducive to effective American intermediation if peace between Israel and her neighbors is ever to come. I am highly aware of the arguments against, but I have come to the conviction that the risks for Israel in seeking peace are less daunting, and less dangerous in the mid-to-long run, than those of not doing so.

And for what it is worth, whether he rejects or denounces Farrakhan, Obama's comments on rebuilding relationships between Jews and African-Americans (and his willingness to denounce anti-Semitism within the black community in speeches to African-American audiences) touch me deeply.

On the Ohio Debate

Politics: Who's winning, who's losing, and why.
Most Improved Debater : In what may be the final debate, Obama shows how he's grown.
By John Dickerson
Posted Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008, at 8:10 AM ET (Slate)

In the first Democratic primary debate 10 months ago, Hillary Clinton didn't have to charge that Barack Obama wasn't ready to be president on Day One. He did the work for her. He was halting, mumbling, and tentative. The only confidence he instilled was in Clinton. Nineteen debates later, he's improved so much that if he's not ready to be president on Day One, you could imagine he might get there after a little study. At what may be the last debate of the Democratic primary, Obama was commanding, at ease, and magnanimous. Clinton needed him to stumble, and he didn't. He won the night.

I think Dickerson nailed this.

What most astounds me about Obama's performances in the debates is his astonishing capacity for growth. I think last night was his best ever. Not only that--he now looks and feels "Presidential"--fully ready to step into the role "on Day One," as Hillary would have it. His mixture of gravitas, increasing command of the issues (less well displayed in his response on the incoming Russian President--although Hillary muffed that one as well), and gently self-effacing humor (which has, in the last two debates, utterly undermined Clintonian attacks, and made their purveyors look silly)--show his utter sense of command and, for me at least, recall several of JFK's most memorable political talents.

I respect Senator Clinton's policy knowledge and general sense of competence (not always well displayed in her Campaign). I do not want, especially as a male, to employ language suggestive of a sexist critique (and I was thrilled by her coming to the White House in 1992, and by her designation to head the (ill-fated) health care reform effort.) But the more I see of her in this campaign, the less I like her. Part of it is her world-leading sense of entitlement. Part is her increasingly obvious psychological projection, blaming others (including but not limited to Obama) for campaign tactics and motivations in a way that is more revealing of herself (and not in a positive sense) than illuminating about Obama, who is now able to shrug them off as campaign silliness. Senator Clinton is in real danger of making herself look ridiculous. I'll leave it there for now.

Rich Pickings: A vote for faith in America itself

I think Frank Rich's piece in today's NYT gets it exactly right. I have the audacity to hope so:

"...Or is it because Mrs. Clinton’s shrill campaign continues to cast her as Nixon to Mr. Obama’s Kennedy?...

"But it just may be possible that the single biggest boost to the Obama campaign is not white liberal self-congratulation or the Clinton camp’s self-immolation, but the collective nastiness of the Republican field. Just when you think the tone can’t get any uglier, it does. ...

"For those Americans looking for the most unambiguous way to repudiate politicians who are trying to divide the country by faith, ethnicity, sexuality and race, Mr. Obama is nothing if not the most direct shot. After hearing someone like Mitt Romney preach his narrow, exclusionist idea of “Faith in America,” some Americans may simply see a vote for Mr. Obama as a vote for faith in America itself."

May it be so.

Everybody (On Campus) Digs Barack Obama

On Faith: Georgetown Blog:

The results of my scientific poll of scholars of religion and theology at various universities (n = 14) have now been tabulated. The question asked was: “With which current presidential aspirant would you most like to sit down and discuss issues pertaining to faith—Church/State issues, Gnostic Gospels, Schleiermacher, anything?” Save one stray vote for former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, every professor I spoke to expressed a preference for the same candidate. If, like me, you believe that the titles of classic Jazz albums are repositories of timeless wisdom and wit, then my campus findings may be summarized by the title of Bill Evans' 1958 masterpiece: “Everybody digs Barack Obama.” Incontrovertible proof of the Academy’s liberal bias, this adulation for the Senator from Illinois? Perhaps. Yet he does possess qualities that make him uniquely attractive to people with advanced degrees in religious studies and other subjects. Obama can sound awfully professorial, as opposed to wonkish, when discussing issues pertaining to faith. The decade he spent as a lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Chicago has clearly left its mark. When reading or listening to him analyze questions of public policy and religion many scholars undoubtedly experience the pleasure of recognition. They may even conclude--somewhat narcissistically-- that “Senator Obama is one of us!”

All presidential candidates must weave what I call “a narrative of faith.” Here again, Obama offers something out of the ordinary. The generic storyline of a Protestant aspirant for High Office goes something like this. Candidate X was once an OK Christian. Then a traumatic episode occurred which solidified his or her faith, resulting in deepened spiritual awareness. Candidate X emerged from these travails a better, stronger Christian--a “hard champion” of godly virtue (Here, using the title of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ 1985 album).

Mr. Obama’s narrative is rather different. As a child, he was schooled in both Catholic and Muslim institutions. Too, there is reason to believe that prior to his later-life baptism he was under-churched or non-churched and may even have flirted with a casual sort of non-belief. All of these experiences tincture his thinking on religion with more sophistication and edge than any other candidate in the race.

Last, as regards religious imaging, God Talk, and so forth, Senator Obama is a very original and cunning operator. Much in the way that he manages to constantly criticize the Democratic Party all the while portraying himself as the embodiment of a Democrat, Obama can lampoon the faith and values game while playing it with extraordinary skill. His quip about the “politician who shows up at a black church around election time and claps (off rhythm) to the gospel choir” is a classic zinger. It is a mustard-filled paint-ball aimed at John Kerry that then ricochets directly into one of Hillary Clinton’s preferred photo-ops.

Of course, the types of politicians who mesmerize the theology professors are rarely the ones who sway the American electorate. Opposition Research teams may also dig Barack Obama, as we shall soon see.

Posted by Jacques Berlinerblau on August 27, 2007 9:44 AM

Hillary Pushes the Button

The Nation Blog: By Robert Scheer .

What in the world was Sen. Hillary Clinton thinking when she attacked Sen. Barack Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in going after Osama bin Laden? And why aren't her supporters more concerned about yet another egregious example of Clinton's consistent backing for the mindless militarism that is dragging this nation to ruin? So what that she is pro-choice and a woman if the price of proving her capacity to be Commander in chief is that we end up with an American version of Margaret Thatcher?
In response to the 9/11 hijackers, armed with weapons no more sophisticated than $3 box cutters, American military spending, with Senate Armed Services Committee member Clinton's enthusiastic support, has catapulted beyond cold war levels. Senator Clinton has treated the military budget as primarily a pork-barrel target of opportunity for jobs and profit in New York state, supports increased money for missile defense and every other racket the military-industrial complex comes up with, and still feels no obligation to repudiate her vote for the disastrous Iraq war.
Given her sorry record of cheerleading the irrational post-cold war military buildup, do we not have a right, indeed an obligation, to question whether Clinton is committed to creating a more peaceful world? Don't say that we weren't warned if a President Hillary Clinton further imperils our world, as she has clearly positioned herself as the leading hawk in the Democratic field. What other reason was there for first blasting Obama for daring to state that he would meet with foreign leaders whom Bush has branded as sworn enemies, and then for the attack on Obama's very sensible statement that it would be "a profound mistake" to use nuclear weapons in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the attempt to eliminate bin Laden?

You know, I'm really fed up with the "positioning oneself as tough" motif--as Jon Stewart would--or perhaps did--say, "I will eat their testicles." (Probably not the wisest choice of metaphor for a Clinton.) And Obama has done some of it himself. But is it really disqualifyingly naive to say that I would be open to meeting with our adversaries to see if we can improve our relationship after years--or decades--of fruitless and unproductive (or counterproductive) impasse, or that I would not employ nuclear weapons to resolve a political difference of limited magnitude (or megatonnage)? Who is really impressed by the silly, bellicose rhetoric? (Yeah--I'll cover your torture and raise you three Gitmo's! Fix that petfood and unpaint those silly dolls or I'll blast you back to the Stone Age!)

Maybe folks are ready for someone showing quiet confidence, problem solving inclination and ability, and an interest in building constructive relationships. Too bad the someone won't be a female, at least this time around.

The Reality-Based Community: Rove's disciple

: By Mark Kleiman

The Clinton campaign, both the candidate and the surrogates, have been going after Barack Obama hard and personally. He's 'naive' and 'irresponsible,' too inexperienced to trust as Commander in Chief. Now Obama says that, largely through no fault of her own, Clinton is not the best person to bring the country back together. The Clinton campaign's reaction: accusing Obama of 'attack politics.' The lie, and the projection, are transparent. But that's not to say that those tactics won't work. After all, they elected George W. Bush, didn't they? It's not easy to figure out which candidate this year could be the legitimate heir of FDR. But it's not hard to figure out which campaign carries the DNA of Karl Rove.

I didn't say it myself, but I will post it. I think it's largely true, and I don't want 4, or 8, more years of it. Unless the alternative is worse.