In Defense of Sour Grapes

Perhaps Hillary is right -- Obama's not ready to be president.  Perhaps being elected three times as an Illinois state senator and once as a U.S. senator doesn't qualify him as sufficiently seasoned to assume the role of commander-in-chief.  Maybe Clinton's two terms as an elected official and her years as first lady trump his four terms and years as a community organizer and make her, hands down, the wiser choice.  Sure, she voted for the Iraq War resolution.  Yes, she did lobby hard in support of NAFTA (although you wouldn't know it by listening to her campaign in Ohio and Pennsylvania) back in the days when she was refusing to bake cookies, opting instead to gain that magic elixir,  experience, at the coattails of her husband.  And granted, her handling of the White House Travel Office scrum exhibited the same imperious hand as did her slamming of the door marked, "Keep Out" behind her as she and her team proceeded to botch their first crack at health care.  Most recently, her pursuit of the presidency has been marked by fits and starts, a seemingly endless hunt for her elusive "voice," and blatant mismanagement of her finances, forcing her to lend the campaign money earned god knows how (we're still waiting to see her and Bill's 1040 -- anytime now would be good).

But maybe all of these experiences d0 add up to a wisdom superior to that of the 46-year old Illinois upstart and his three years time spent in Washington.  Maybe it really is how many years you spend, not how you spend them.  Empirical evidence to the contrary along the lines of Lincoln (two years in the US House), FDR (three years as governor of NY), Theodore Roosevelt (two years as governor of NY and six months as McKinley's V.P.), Wilson (two years in the US House), Eisenhower (no elected experience),  James Monroe (no elected experience) and Hoover (no elected experience) might argue otherwise, but okay.  If the experts say so.  Experience is vital. 

Go ahead, HRC and McCain.  Have at it.  May the more experienced head prevail.

Unhappily, not winning the nomination this year might be the best thing that ever happens to Obama.  Seriously.  Have you looked around lately?  

This war is going nowhere fast and the economy is going south even faster.  The claim that we will end our occupation of Iraq in 2009 is a broken campaign promise waiting to happen.  While McCain's vision of an extended stay is unpopular amongst all but the most pugnacious, it's probably the most realistic reading of how the situation will play out.  And, as a cherry atop our martial sundae, we're gearing up for yet another wild, wild, mid-east stare-down, this time  with Iran.  Every ship and jet we move into the Persian Gulf makes some level of shooting war more likely.  

Back home, Alan Greenspan predicts the most dire financial straits in sixty years lie ahead.  People are loathe to admit the homes they over-borrowed to acquire are worth less than they paid for them so the housing market will be predictably slow to stabilize.  As the price of oil goes up, the value of the dollar goes down.  The Fed bailed out Bear Stearns by orchestrating JP Morgan Chase's takeover and by underwriting $30 billion worth of Bear's sub-prime, mortgage-backed bonds.  (That's on our dime, by the way).  Do we believe this was an isolated incident?  Hardly.  Lehman Brothers and UBS are two more investment banks with huge sub-prime exposure.  The Fed can't afford to let them fail, either.  Perception is everything on the Street and if any of these giants fail they could spark a run on banks and create a domino effect.  The economy grew by just 0.6% last quarter, it's worst performance since 2002.  That six-tenths of a point margin of growth is going to allow the administration to avoid using the dreaded term "recession" next month, as it is defined by two consecutive quarters of declining GDP, but it's coming, as sure as our $300 dollar stimulus checks are going to make everything  all right.  

This is about as bad a hand as an incoming president can be dealt.  It has taken seven long years of hard work for Bush and his cohorts to achieve this level of dysfunction.  You can sense that the pressure is off now that the end is in sight.  They can relax.  Their work here is done.  Bush is doing the soft-shoe shuffle on the back porch for the press corps and crooning sophomoric country ditties bemoaning the unfair legacies of Harriet, Brownie and Scooter.  Cheney has emerged from his cave and weighed in on the country's condemnation of the administration's prosecution of the Iraq War with the brilliantly concise, "So?"  Such chutzpah.  Their contempt for the public is truly breathtaking.  

It's almost impossible to foresee the next president prospering against these odds.  Why not let Hillary, or better yet, McCain, reap the rewards of the Bush clan's work?  Obama could spend a few more years in the Senate polishing his bipartisan credentials reaching across the aisle to pass progressive legislation with the help of the clear Democratic majority.  Or, if Clinton promises to play nice, he could accept the number two slot on the ticket, thereby giving the oh-so-sensitive and skittish electorate four to eight more years to ameliorate their fears of a black man with a strange name in the White House.  He would be perfectly positioned for a run in 2012 or even 2016, at the ripe old age of fifty-four, while Clinton absorbed the inevitable pounding that Bush's folly must engender.  

There's just something ironic about waiting all these years for a qualified, transformative, electable, minority candidate and, upon being presented with Barack Obama, realizing that this is the ultimate no-win situation.  So, although it smacks of heresy to his loyal following, perhaps it's worthwhile to consider the flip side here.  Obama's got another thirty years of public service ahead of him.  Is it in his best interests to spend the next four in hell?   

Lethal Neocon Propaganda

It's a pipe dream to entertain the notion of an Iraq free of U.S. forces anytime in the foreseeable future. 

 I'm not going to repeat the popular progressive misrepresentation of John McCain's quote that we could stay in Iraq for a thousand or a million years as far as he was concerned.  Any analysis free of political agenda makes it pretty clear that he was referring to a presence along the lines of our long-term deployments in Japan or South Korea.  To claim that he was implying that the current situation could continue into the next millennium is disingenuous.  However, he is firmly in the military solution camp and supports a muscular presence until the killing stops.  Until the killing stops.  As Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, that might be awhile.

Clinton and Obama both seem intent upon ending the war and pulling out all combat troops within a year.  They would begin drawing down between one and two brigades a month, leaving a nebulous, unspecified number of support troops to, "strike at terrorists, train Iraqi soldiers and protect American interests."  This pace is faster than most field officers in Iraq deem prudent and they feel it would leave us without enough force to deal with the situation on the ground.

The Democratic candidates' plans are fiction.  Sound-bite strategies to pave the way to the White House along the campaign trail.  At best, they should be taken as optimistic suggestions, much like Hillary's "universal" health care plan.  Even she admits that the health care battle will be fierce and that's why it's necessary to start with the absolute goal of universal coverage.  It's like any act of barter -- you start as low (or as high) as possible and give up as little ground as you can.  

That's how one needs to look at the two proposals for leaving Iraq.  Start with a year and then see how long it will really take.  Eric Rosenbach, executive director of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School, predicts, "Four years, optimistically, and more like seven or eight years" until Iraq is self-sufficient.  West Point professor Brian Fishman warns, "...when you talk about some kind of end for American troops, it's certainly in terms of years."  Anyone who takes specific campaign promises to heart, well, either they haven't been paying much attention over the years or they have a serious case of heartburn.

So, I'm willing to grant that the complexities of Iraq make our leaving within the next couple of years unlikely, even impossible.  That being said, is there any goddamn way to get McCain and Bush and the rest of his neocon stooges to quit labeling a measured drawdown of American men and women as a "hasty retreat?"  They've latched onto that tired phrase like a Nebraska housewife clutching her handbag in Times Square.

A hasty retreat is what the French beat in the face of the Germans' offensive from the Somme in June of 1940.  It's the option you chose in high school through your girlfriend's bedroom window when you heard her father coming up the stairs. 

Today marks the completion of the fifth full year of the Iraq War.  That's 1,827 days, counting leap years.  3,990 American troops have been killed, 29,395 wounded.  60,000 troops have completed their service commitments but been forbidden to leave the military until their units return.  8,000 Iraqi military and police killed.  89,000 Iraqi civilian casualties.  4.5 million Iraqi refugees.  $5-7 trillion in estimated costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

THERE IS NOTHING HASTY ABOUT THIS!  This is an agonizingly slow, protracted death of a thousand cuts.  We are spending $12 billion dollars each month on this war.  Two Americans die each day.  EACH DAY!  

Do you think their families would consider this a hasty action?  Best case scenario, let's say HRC or Obama gets elected and, against the advice of the hawks at the table, ends our Iraqi involvement by 2011.  Do you think the families, friends and loved ones of the troops killed between now and then would consider this a hasty retreat?  I don't either.

Look, you want to make a case for a continued presence in Iraq, then do so.  But deliberately stigmatizing any and all reasoned plans to escape the clutches of an unreasoned and unreasonable war as a "hasty retreat" is unconscionable.  It disrespects those who have already died in this game of chicken Bush initiated and it disrespects the thousands who will die in the years ahead.  

Do The Right Thing

As it becomes ever more evident that Barack  Obama will be able to continue raising almost unlimited cash so long as there's a world wide web, John McCain has a bone to pick with the presumptive Democratic nominee.  Inconvenient as it may be to Obama's big picture plans, McCain is reminding him of the agreement the two of them made last year (detailed here by Kenneth P. Vogel at Politico.com) to accept public financing, thereby limiting each candidate to $85 million in funding for the general election campaign.  At the time, I'm sure it seemed like a good idea to the Illinois upstart.  He was just another face in a crowded room (albeit a room filled with old, white faces so it's not like he didn't stand out).  Who could have predicted his embarrassment of riches?  Now, to limit his funding to a paltry $85 million seems absurd, given his remarkable abilities to persuade folks to pony up for his cause on a monthly basis, $25 at a time.

Trouble is, McCain has a point.

These guys are both running as reformers:  McCain cruises around the country in the Straight Talk Express, pissing off evangelicals, right-wing talk radio hosts and fat-cat lobbyists while Obama promises to ride into Washington and change the mindset of the city itself by getting Democrats, Republicans and Independents to sit together and compromise like reasonable men, thereby further promoting the image of Camelot and its mythical Round Table that was first invoked by the Bobby Kennedy comparisons.

And, as a reformer, one of Obama's hole cards has  always been campaign finance.  He lists it front and center on the Ethics page of his website:

"Obama introduced public financing legislation in the Illinois State Senate, and is the only 2008 candidate to have sponsored Senator Russ Feingold's (D-WI) tough bill to reform the presidential public financing system."

The whole point of the Feingold legislation is to reduce the influence of private money and provide candidates with enough public funding to run an effective campaign without having to become full-time telemarketers.  The Washington Post quoted Obama last February:

"Congress concluded some thirty years ago that the public funding alternative . . . would serve core purposes in the public interest:  limiting the escalation of campaign spending and the associated pressures on candidates to raise, at the expense of time devoted to public dialogue, ever vaster sums of money."

He has promoted campaign reform, he has voted for campaign reform and he has written campaign reform.  Most importantly, he has campaigned on campaign reform.  Now, if he wants to maintain his integrity as an agent of change from George Bush's blatant mendacity and Bill Clinton's parsing of the truth, he must stand by his pledge.

Besides, money, while obviously important, may not be the magic bullet this time around.  McCain's most effective marketing is the continuous barrage of shameless character assassination and innuendo that the GOP and party faithful heap upon Obama.  They're like mental patients in the asylum slinging fecal matter against the walls to see what sticks:  from declaring Barack Hussein Obama a closet Muslim who took his oath of office on the Koran, to accusing him of refusing to pledge allegiance in a patriotic enough fashion, to claiming he was educated in an Indonesian madrassah.   McCain doesn't pay a dime for this crap.  It's out there, all the time, and he can pick and choose which of the most outrageous of the charges to disassociate himself from on those rare occasions when he is asked about them.  He has pledged to run a positive, issues-based campaign, so we can only assume that his legitimate, paid advertising will steer clear of these insults to the electorate's intelligence.  Unfortunately, hobbled by the truth, he would be reduced to trying to defeat Obama on a platform of Bush tax cuts and the Hundred Years Surge.  I don't think even he believes that will work.  So I'm guessing the slander will continue.

And as for Obama, the mainstream press may as well be a branch of his campaign.  Have you watched Hardball lately?  It's like a 60-minute Barack infomercial.  I don't know what Hillary did to piss off Chris Matthews but, whatever it was, it wasn't worth it.  Ditto for Countdown with Keith Olbermann.  If they're this biased for Obama against a Democrat, I can hardly wait to see what they have in store for McCain in the general election.

The point is, both of them are getting much of what they need for free, anyway.  There's so much media coverage now that political advertising doesn't carry anywhere near the weight it did when the financing laws were written.  Seriously, when's the last time you actually paid attention to a campaign commercial on television?

My question is, why not fight McCain even up, Barack?  You've got the momentum, the message, a tanking economy, an endless war.  Your organization on a state-by-state basis is the envy of all of your opponents.  You're younger, more eloquent and you're not a Republican following George Bush.  Plus, you're capable of beginning a sentence without the words, "My friends."  These are huge advantages.  

And most crucially, it's the right thing to do.  It's what got you to this point.  As you're fond of pointing out, "No one said this would be easy."  The high road can be a lonely place but it's where you need to be.

 

Enough Already

God, I'm tired.  I just finished watching the Clinton/Obama slogfest from Cleveland and I'm not sure I can climb out of this chair and make it to bed.  

I don't remember the last time I endured such an enervating performance from both parties involved.  Have you ever watched an NBA game in the doldrums of January between two lousy teams, the visiting team playing their fourth game in five nights and the home team just back that morning from a nine-game, west coast swing?  It was like that.  Fumbled exchanges, wild shots missing their marks, no ability to freelance or improvise.  

Everything that was said had been said before, but better.  Both candidates looked like they'd rather be just about anywhere but Cleveland State University in a snow storm.  Neither one appeared to give much of a damn about how they came off.  If this debate was a movie, it was The Godfather: Part III.  

Hillary was a mess.  The expression on her face whenever the camera showed her listening to Obama or the moderators was one of glum resignation.  It's the way I looked when my dentist told me I needed an emergency root canal.  Her shrill complaint against Williams and Russert (and, I can only assume, Campbell Brown, Natalie Morales, Wolf Blitzer and anyone else who's directed a question her way throughout these debates) for calling on her first would have struck the most politically tone deaf note of the night if not for her pre-packaged jab at Obama and whether he should be offered a pillow.  You would think she would have learned her lesson in Texas when her embarrassing Xerox "zinger" clunked resoundingly onto the stage floor.  She even managed to negate her only substantive advantage -- the fact that her health care plan is marginally less delusional than Obama's -- by refusing to let the subject go when it was time to move on, continually interrupting to inject one last mewling scrap of minutia.  By debate's end I was reminded of Robert De Niro in Raging Bull, hanging on to Sugar Ray Robinson after absorbing a punishing beating, mumbling, "You never knocked me down, Ray.  You never knocked me down."  

Obama's performance was only marginally better.  He seemed lethargic, content to sit back and parry the futile thrusts of his exhausted opponent.  Obama is at his best when he is in oratorical full flight.  When his words are meant to inspire the better instincts in all of us.  When he is setting the agenda.  These debates don't play to his strengths.  Sometimes, when his reaction to a Clinton attack is meant to be measured and deliberative, he comes across as smug, even condescending.  He once again missed opportunities to tie in the cost of the Iraq war with the free-falling economy here at home.  Perhaps he's saving that ammo for McCain.  He wasn't able to put to rest questions about his pledge last year to take public financing in the general election.  It's an interesting box he's constructed for himself on this one -- we'll have to wait and see how he extricates himself.  Hard to picture him voluntarily ceding the advantage his spectacular fundraising machine gives him.  He is, however, running a campaign based on ideals and accountability, right?  

Basically, not much changed as a result of this debate.  If I had to guess what the biggest blow of the night was, I'd say it was Russert's steamrolling of HRC on her NAFTA flip-flop.  He hit her with a flurry that underlined in no uncertain terms how she championed the trade agreement until it became a political albatross around her neck.  I'll bet that's what Ohio voters took away from what has otherwise become an exercise in picking over the barren carcass of this campaign in search of fresh ideas or stimulating arguments.

This thing is over.  Actually, it's been over for awhile now.  The exact moment it ended was immediately after the Wisconsin primary, when Hillary was giving her non-concession speech to a modest gathering of disappointed supporters in Youngstown, Ohio and all of the networks cut away from that lead balloon to show Obama raising the roof in front of 20,000 raucous fans down in Houston, Texas.  You can fool most of the people practically all of the time but when the guys sitting in the corner offices at the networks decide you're no longer relevant, well, that pain in your neck is from the big fork that's sticking out of it.

Clinton won't drop out this week.  If she was capable of that, she wouldn't be Hillary Clinton.  She's still polling okay in Ohio, she likes her chances in Pennsylvania, she and Bill are holding the chits of a bunch of undeclared super delegates and the Florida/Michigan fiasco is yet to be settled.  That all adds up to continuing the fight at least through Ohio.  

But make no mistake about it:  Hillary's campaign is well into its endgame now.  She'll be fine, by the way.  It's even money her next job title will be Senate Majority Leader.  Assuming she doesn't burn too many bridges between now and the Democratic National Convention.

Run, Ralph, Run

Ralph Nader made his quadrennial visit to NBC's Meet The Press on Sunday to deliver the news flash that he's . . . running . . . for . . . president . . . as . . . a . . . third . . . party . . . candidate.  Again.

The responses of HRC and Obama were predictable and can be reviewed in the New York Times article here.  In a nutshell, Obama made the always popular "he's not putting food on the voters' tables" argument while Clinton found the decision "really unfortunate."  Back in 2004, then-DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe termed that year's Nader announcement, "very unfortunate," so it's good to see that Hillary is still taking her cues from the democratic party's (and Clinton machine's) biggest rainmaker.  

If I'm Senator Clinton, Nader's announcement isn't, "really unfortunate."  Maybe it's "interesting."  At worst, "curious."  What's "really unfortunate" is that her campaign, helmed by the evidently distracted Patty Solis Doyle, squandered a twenty-plus point lead and burned through more than $105 million by Super Tuesday with little to show for it beyond access to the VIP lounge at the local Dunkin' Donuts.  She's never going to see her name across from Nader's on a ballot.  Obama's getting ready to drop the hammer in Texas and I wouldn't bet against him in Ohio.  At which point it's, as they say on The West Wing, "Game over."

But the national teeth-gnashing that the Dems engage in each time Ralph Nader sits down with Tim Russert has grown tiresome.  Yes, his previous campaigns hurt the Democratic nominee more than the Republican candidate.  Obviously, he attracted potential Democratic votes in Florida and Ohio, votes that would no doubt have gone to Gore and Kerry and perhaps have wrested the final decisions away from Jeb Bush and Rehnquist and Diebold and Triad Systems.  If the complaint is voiced as a statement, I respond, "So what?"  If it is framed as a question, I answer,  "Too bad."

If you truly believe that the system in its present construct is broken, and that we need new, outside-Washington blood to effect real change from top to bottom, then there is no rational argument you can make that Ralph shouldn't be allowed to run.  

Both Obama and HRC stump passionately against the influence of corporate lobbyists and the need for campaign finance reform.  But you could add together their respective years spent actually combating big money interests and then cube that number and you wouldn't equal the years Nader has spent fighting and winning against corporate fat cats. 

The mainstream candidates are happy to talk about environmental problems and solutions but neither has the nature-friendly bona fides of Nader, who ran in 2000 and 2004 as the candidate of the Green Party.  His career has been built upon the fight for clean air, clean water, safe food and  environmental standards.  

Ralph Nader is not going to play spoiler in the general election.  The 2.7% he won in '04 was down from the 3.0% he garnered in '00.  He will do worse in '08.  But his is a voice that it does us good to hear every four years.  Because deep down, buried under the cynicism and hypocrisy of our two party system, we know he's right.  And if all we have to do is listen to him make a couple of speeches, maybe read an op-ed or two in the Times, well, that's a small price to pay for acknowledging what we're doing to our consciences when we step into the voting booth.

Worst case scenario, Nader's candidacy drops Obama's margin of victory over McCain in November back down to single digits.