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?