I'm going to be brief because I really, really like Obama and I think he did well last night. But I'm troubled by what I saw as a still-cerebral, still-centrist image being trumpeted as "the best thing since Obama 2004," especially because it is overshadowing my candidate (Edwards)'s phenomenal performance. (Full disclosure is preferred, right?)
I decided to do a little reading - I almost never watch TV, so - reading a transcript of Obama's interview with Tim Russert. Now I know what everybody says about Russert, and I agree; so I'm only going to quote Obama's words, or Russert quoting Obama directly.
I apologize if a lot of these quotes or issues have been diaried and dismissed before. I'm still pretty new here.
Some may notice this is my second diary on Obama; I just remembered the first. In some ways, Obama is my favorite to write about because his campaign is the most attuned to political philosophy of any of them. I just disagree with his.
What is the essence of Obama's politics? Basically, that the old dichotomies - either "from the 90s" or "from the 60s," depending on the quote, don't hold up. He uses "hawks" and "doves" as an example - more on that later. Essentially Obama's politics is about how a politician should engage the public - e.g., honestly and with full attention to the complexity of issues, without resorting to "red state" vs. "blue state" dichotomies. "Post-partisan" politics.
It comes down to this:
that the American people have a right to know what exactly we intend to do as president. And if I believe that one of my opponents is potentially going to take the party or the country in a direction that does not meet our challenges, does not take advantage of the opportunities that are available, I'm going to point it out.
That's the difference between issue contrasts and attacks.
He did a good job making this distinction. But does he embody it?
Well, Russert quotes Obama saying in July 2004:
I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made. [bolded bit updated to reflect context - thanks LCA!]
There's not much of a difference between my position on Iraq and George Bush's position at this stage.
There's some room for disagreement in that initial decision to vote for authorization of the war.
Obama's response is that
that first quote was made with an interview with a guy named Tim Russert on MEET THE PRESS during the convention when we had a nominee for the presidency and a vice president, both of whom had voted for the war. And so it, it probably was the wrong time for me to be making a strong case against our party's nominees' decisions when it came to Iraq.
Two things here. First off, Obama is excusing himself, through an appeal to party politics, from the previously all-important need to talk straight with the American people. (There are a whole lot of additional examples from the interview, where he had Clintonesque "My plan is to put together a commission to come up with a plan" or "I'm going to get to Washington and ask people for their ideas" answers.)
But second, and more importantly, the excuse doesn't work. Obama couldn't possibly have thought it would support our nominee if he said he agreed with the Republican nominee on Iraq. It was crucial to draw a distinction there! And as Obama himself said last night,
I am sick and tired of Democrats thinking that the only way to look tough on national security is by talking and acting and voting like George Bush Republicans.
Was he trying to defend the Party's national security record by saying his position was identical to George Bush's? How could siding with George Bush possibly work for Kerry and Edwards?
The only answer I've come up with is that Obama's rhetoric (and rhetoric, or at least discourse, is at the heart of his campaign) is, quite simply, a little hawkish. Two more examples from this interview: first on Iran, and then on the bigger issue of "hawks vs. doves" imagery.
In March, as Russert points out, Obama voted for a Senate resolution with the following language:
The Secretary of State should designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
The distinction between him and Hillary, then, is simply (in his words) that
she believes that our force structure inside Iraq should, in part, depend on how we can prevent Iran from having influence inside of Iraq. And I think that is a mistake, particularly at a time when we know this administration has been itching to escalate the tensions between Iran and the United States.
But the crucial point remains, of course, that the designation of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization itself escalated tensions.
As for hawks and doves, Obama says the following.
Well, look, when we think about, let's say, foreign policy, we have had a tendency to, to argue along the spectrum of you're either a hawk or a dove. Either you're willing to engage in military action and oftentimes think military action first and diplomacy second, or you're a dove, you've got post-Vietnam syndrome, you're suspicious of any military action. I think that the way we have to think about it is to say that right now we live in a dangerous world. There are times where we're going to need to act militarily. We should not hesitate to act on behalf of the national interest. But we have to understand that we've got more power than just the military at our, our disposal, and that's something, obviously, the Bush administration has forgotten.
Having the ability to focus on getting the job done, as opposed to getting embroiled in ideological arguments, which have become so common in Washington, I think, is going to be important for the next president, and that's what I intend to do as president.
Getting the job done rather than "ideological arguments" - arguing about things like whether the use of military force might generally be a bad idea. Obama here is basically saying, "look, the Republicans are right about how the world works and what our foreign policy concerns should be, but they don't know as much about soft power as I do." Anybody who is "suspicious of any military action" has "post-Vietnam syndrome" and is basically a hippie.
I think we should be suspicious of any military action. Don't you? Wasn't that the lesson of Iraq, and now, even Afghanistan? Isn't Obama playing the Republican game by making the threat of terrorism and America's unilateral military response ("we should not hesitate to act on behalf of the national interest") to it the central feature of his foreign policy? Honestly, what is Samantha Power thinking?
And isn't Obama actually constructing strawmen for his opponents by doing this - e.g., "hawks" and "doves" are both behind the times? Fighting the old fights, like the anti-war fight, when he's moved on to bigger things, like ridding the world of evil and serving the national interest?