It seems to me that many here, including Daily Kos' eponymous founder Markos, are blithely, or perhaps willfully, missing much of the essence of our nominee's candidacy. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, since he has been saying exactly what that is for some time now.
Like 4 years or more.
So perhaps I should try to change some minds here.
Let's get this straight. Whether what Wes Clark said about McCain's military record is on target or not (and I happen to believe it was) is not the issue. Obama does not want to go there. Right or wrong, this is his candidacy and he gets to set the tone and call the shots. No one needs to worry about Clark's back. The guy commanded NATO for God sake. Either he can take care of himself or he should go get a job at the USO making gift baskets for the troops.
The point of this diary is to make the argument that Obama's candidacy is a mix of the subtle and the dramatic. It is about change, something we've all clamored for, but it is about bigger change than simple policy improvements. It is about saving our system of government, about dramatically altering our course as a nation, and about bringing together the various viewpoints for honest discussion and debate in moving forward together.
I look at Barack Obama and am puzzled by those who say he is a clean slate, all things to all people, or whatever else people are saying today. He is anything but that. What he is, in my view, is someone who has learned that several things must change. The people on this site, this dailykos, the progressive vortex that we love, fully understand one part of that. Yes, this place seems to get that:
We need to address the environmental problems we face.
We need to move away from fossil fuels with every possible urgency.
We need to reduce the amount of energy we use.
We need to improve our education system, since it is education that predominately influences where a country goes.
We need to ...
Well, you get the idea. We, as progressives, "get" the magnitude of the problems that we face and believe that the government has a large role to play in helping to address them. We do not believe, as those who oppose progressive thought would have people think, that government is the answer. We believe that government has a role in getting to the answer. This is so because the market does not appropriately weigh the long term versus the short term, nor does it protect the disenfranchised. The market encourages the pushing the problems that are created by capitalism onto those who can not push back, whether they are poor humans, or birds, or fishes, or coral or the Ozone layer or Glaciers. That is the way it works. Plankton does not have a lobbying group on K-street.
The problem is that this is only one side of the problem. The other is that whether or not you agree on who is right and who is wrong, whether it was Bush, Clinton, Gingrich, Coulter, Daschle or Nixon, whether it was K-street lobbyists or LGBT activists, whoever is to blame - and I have my own views on this - the problem is that the whole fucking thing is broke. Each side is so heavily invested in making sure the other side does not score political points that nothing, ever, gets, done. At least not of any consequence.
I would be willing to bet anyone here that if Obama were to lay out his vision of what the country looks like at the end of eight years upwards of 99% of this place would agree that it is worth fighting for. The areas of disagreement would be so far in the noise it would be fun to try to imagine the argument about them, but I put that off for another time. The point being, this whole firestorm (Clark, FISA, whatever is next...) isn't about any of that. I think it has to be taken on faith around there that the agreement on the issues is about as close to 100% as it is going to get with someone who also has the ability to both get elected and has the wisdom to potentially succeed in leading this nation.
What is being missed is that Obama is doing exactly what he has said he would do. He is making calls that will begin to move us forward. He knows that what is needed is a leader of all the people.
Not just us. All of us.
He never said it is a good idea to protect the telcos from lawsuits relating to potentially having done illegal wiretapping at the government's request. He said that in this case his judgment was that the problems that remain were ones that were addressable and in the current climate, this is the best that we can get and that security trumps purity.
I hate it too, but it is the truth. You want to explain to the voters in November how the attack that came in October wasn't related to the wiretaps that were voted down in June? I didn't think so, but that is still not the point.
The point is that Obama in dealing with FISA, in dealing with Clark, in dealing with many of the things that have and will come up, is being consistent.
He isn't going to hold back his fire from people on this side who decide to launch vigilante attacks on his opponent. If it helps, I'll use that memorable bumper sticker that probably many here have smiled at:
Launching a War for Peace is like Fucking for Virginity.
It is non sequitur. It does not follow.
You can't have a president whose message is changing politics when the campaign allows personal attacks on the opposition.
I don't even care that by our standards today, Wes Clark's statements weren't much. That says as much about our standards today as it does about the statements. I'm reminded of a statement that a very wise person once told me, "Start as you intend to continue." Or as any schoolteacher can tell you, it is easier to start strict and relax near the end than to start relaxed and get strict later on.
Obama MUST do it this way in order to succeed. He is showing the country that he can do better by being better. By running a better kind of campaign, by not allowing surrogates to be attack dogs, by building a record of inspirational and historic addresses, by acknowledging faults and undertaking to improve. Yes, he will respond to slanders, he has shown that already. But, no he will not allow the same going the opposite direction.
And when it comes to gray areas, he will choose the higher road. Which in terms of today's discussion is known as compromising.
He is banking on this country's greatness to show itself if he, in turn, shows himself to be worthy. This sounds idealistic, maybe a little hackneyed, but that is the point. In some ways this country which has been wounded so in the last seven years needs this more than it needs those policies fixed. America needs people to stand up and take back the government - and it needs to have the government taken back not by us, the progressives. America needs progressives and moderates and conservatives to take it back from the thugs who have stolen it, the corporations who have bought and sold it, and the warmongers who have rendered it to an undisclosed location.
Then we can debate and discuss the policy issues. And then, and only then, when it is not political suicide to compromise in order to move forward do we have a prayer of a chance of succeeding. I'm confident that when we get to that place, we will will because our arguments are better. I fully expect that people will get that while they might have seen their taxes go down a small amount, their lives have gotten a hell of a lot worse, their roads have turned to shit, their kids, brothers and sisters, or sons and daughters are getting killed and maimed in a war for nothing, and that the planet they live on is turning into a cesspool.
And that Markos is why you are wrong. Because it is not that he is moving to the center, or cowering, or stabbing anyone. It is because he understands what you do not.
And this is understandable because you, and others like you have been the firewall that prevented the light from going out in the darkness. You are the crier in the night who has been announcing the advent of darkness taking over the country. You are the canary alerting us to the poisonous gases that has endangered our lives.
And that is a good thing, and for that we all owe you gratitude.
But you can't unify a country by attacking your opponent.
It hasn't worked in the middle east for thousands of years and it won't work here. This, even though there is a crowd that has temporarily occupied much of the federal government and attempted to drag us into the muck of their fear drenched nightmare, is America. This is the country that can do better. Why does much of the world shake its collective head at us today? Because it knows this and wonders when we are going to shake this disease off, and sometimes it doubts whether it will ever happen, and if not, what then?
Yes, Obama is an elitist. He is an American. That is a very special thing. To me, and to him. We do not always get it right, but we damn sure do in the end, when it matters. And right now, it matters a lot. First we fix the process, then we fix the policy.
Because it can't happen the other way around. It isn't possible.