The Clintons’ amnesia.
Not to pile on, but of all the commentary on the Clintons’ attacks on Barack Obama, E. J. Dionne’s is the best I’ve seen so far.
Let’s grant the Clintons their claims: The press is tougher on Hillary Clinton than it is on Barack Obama; the old, irrational Clinton hatred is alive and well in certain parts of the media; Hillary Clinton gets hit harder when she criticizes Obama than Obama does when he goes after her.
Let’s further stipulate that Obama’s formulation–he said Reagan “changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not”–was guaranteed to enrage the former president. In Democratic circles, associating someone with Nixon is akin to a Roman comparing an emperor with Caligula.
None of it justifies the counterproductive behavior. Does anyone doubt that if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, she will need the votes of the young people and African-Americans who have rallied to Obama–and that what she’s doing now will make it harder to energize them? Doesn’t calling in Bill Clinton as the lead attacker merely underscore Obama’s central theme, that it’s time to “turn the page” on our Bush-Clinton-Bush political past?
And with both Clintons on record saying kind things about Reagan, why go after Obama on the point? Honestly: If Obama is a Reaganite, then I am a salamander.
Read the rest right here.
The press is tougher on Hilary Clinton than it is on Barack Obama. And this whole controversy is evidence of that point.
After praising Reagan, Obama went on to talk about conservatives being the only source of ideas for the last 10 or 15 years — ie from 1992, the year Bill Clinton became president. This is a direct attack on Bill Clinton, part of Obama’s response to Hilary’s claims of experience. ‘She may have worked hard, but for an idealess administration that accomplished nothing.’ If Barack had said “the last 20 or 25 years”, it would have been a remark about Reagan.
What this lays out is the underpinnings of the inexperience/inexperience disucssion. Hilary’s experience? She fought that battle against Reaganites 10 or 15 years ago, and wants to rebuild on the foundations her husband left — balanced budgets, international cooperation, a worldwide web of open information, etc. Obama’s inexperience? He does not seem to know that Bill Clinton accomplished anything, but is still running to change the trajectory set by Reagan.
This was a critical exchange. It is unfortunate that the media, as evidenced by Mr Dionne, could not understand it. His whole point was that 15 years ago, the Clintons said the same things as Barack is saying today. He doesn;t seem to understand that today is not 15 years ago.
After eight years, I had completely forgotten how sleazy and duplicitous were the Clintons when in office, but their treatment of Obama in South Carolina brings back all those bad memories. I wonder if others have had same experience?
Jim McK is right; the media is tougher on Hillary than Barack; it always has been tough on her (at least from 1992). Maybe she deserves tougher scrutiny because she makes big claims about experience and potential in office (and has not always been truthful).
But what Democratic voters have this year–unusually–are two good choices, instead of the lesser of two evil choices. I hope both candidates get to February 6 without having totally bloodied one another… though we can be sure that whoever gets the nomination will be beaten to a pulp by the Republicans and their surrogates (including sectors of the media) next Fall. Maybe this is good experience for both Hillary and Barack, and innoculation for us voters against the Republican attack virus. I hope that’s not putting too positive a spin on things.
Yes, yes. As E. J. rightly points out, the media is tougher on Hillary Clinton. That does not excuse her campaign’s distortions of Obama’s record, which have been flagrant (especially Bill’s). Jim McK, did you read the rest of Dionne’s piece?
Nice people don’t become president; in general nice people don’t become politicians. They are sharp players or they hire people who are sharp players–Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, for example (remember Lee Attwater). (And as I recall the sainted Robert Kennedy played something of the same role in JFK’s campaign).
We may regret the turn the Dems are taking in 2008, but this isn’t a novelty in political campaigns. The Obama campaign may be below the radar screen for most of us because we are not in South Carolina; Dan Balz in today’s WashPost suggests they are not shy about their own charges against Clinton, including charges about playing the race card. Could it be that the media is less interested in what his campaign is doing on this score? And more interested in including Clinton tactics in their general anti-Hillary coverage? This is politics. We still have to decide which of them will get us out of the hell-hole George W. Bush and Co. have dug us into.
Isn’t there something we can hope for between liar and nice person? Has anyone called for wilting-lily-fication of the Democratic candidates? Nobody here needs to be reminded of the role of surrogates in tough campaigns. But let’s not pretend that Bill Clinton is any old surrogate. You don’t think Democratic leaders who have been criticizing him are insufficiently schooled in the realities of politics, do you? And we shouldn’t discount the actual bad behavior of Camp Clinton simply because the media tends to be tougher on her. (Never mind the Times endorsement?) At the same time, Obama’s team should not be given a pass. I must have missed the race-card suggestion in the Balz piece, but if that bunk is still being peddled by Obama’s people, it needs to stop now.
You’re right Grant…Bill Clinton is not any old surrogate. And Gary Wills’s piece on the NYT op-ed page this morning (Saturday) elevates the problem to constitutional history. (It is a curiosity that every page–news, op-ed, week in review, etc.–of the NYTimes except the editorial page seems pretty anti-Hillary, only proving I suppose that there is a wall of separation between the editorial page and everything else.)
However, your point: Hillary will have to do things that makes it clear that this will not be a co-dependent, co-presidency, if she is elected. And Bill will have to get a job that keeps him far from DC. How about mayor of NYC? He’d be great. Fit right in.
Margaret wrote: Could it be that the media is less interested in what his campaign is doing on this score? And more interested in including Clinton tactics in their general anti-Hillary coverage? This is politics. We still have to decide which of them will get us out of the hell-hole George W. Bush and Co. have dug us into?
Jean says: I think the broadcast media frequently opts to cover the more colorful “horse race” elements of the election, and this has distracted attention away from real issues, as Margaret suggests.
Good thing we still have perceptive print media analysts like E.J. Dionne, who’s got it about right as far as I can see.
Bill and Hillary have been playing tag-team attack, and Obama, in my view, has shown an ability to withstand that double assault quite well. The Clintons, on the other hand, seem to be pretty thin-skinned. None of this proves much except that, of the two candidates, Obama strikes me as the one best able to stand up to the pressures of the presidency.
In addition, Obama’s original point about Reagan was perfectly clear to me–extolling not Reagan, but taking his own party to task for falling in with some of Reagan’s policies. The more the Clintons continue to distort that comment, the less I trust the integrity of their campaign.
Both candidates need to move beyond this PDQ, however. The average American is waiting to see who’s going to help the country get a bead on its foreign and domestic problems, not to see who’s going to win the war of words over the Reagan comment.
Grant,
I did read the whole article. That us why I cited it as an example of how clueless ‘the media’ is. He can recognize that Obama is saying the same thing Clinton said 15 years ago, but he does not recognize how inappropriate it is now, as if the last 15 years have not happened. Or even that it is an attack on Clinton, who was president for 8 of those 15 years.
No one should have their record misrepresented. That is why I think Bill has been justified in reacting angrily to these remarks “about Reagan” by Obama.
But, Jim, what then of Obama’s contention in the recent debate that Hillary makes essentially the same observations about Reagan in a forthcoming book?
Jim, I may be missing something here, so please feel free to correct me.
But don’t you think that if Bill felt that Obama was grouping him in with the Democrats who’d been duped by Reagan to vote against their own interests, that he (Bill) ought to have hit back by showing he was not a Reagan dupe?
Instead, he’s hitting back by distorting Obama’s words.
Josh Marshall at TPM has an interesting stream of consciousness trying to analyze why he a Billary fan finds Bill Clinton’s polticking in the primary so problematic. It’s here
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064811.php
It reminds me that the brouhaha about “dirty” politics may have other sources than the dirt itself. I don’t think I agree with Marshall, but it’s worth reading. I do think the two-headed presidency that could follow Hillary’s election is very problematic.
And then Grant, not to annoy you! What if an Obama presidency turns out to be like the Carter presidency: pretty ineffectual precisely because Carter was a man who was going to change American politicsl. I liked Carter very much, I especially liked his human rights policy, but as time passes I realize that Washington overcame him rather than the other way around. Is it possible to be too high-minded and too visionary?
I generally like what Josh Marshall has to say. But I disagree with him about the kinds of attacks the Clinton team have leveled at Obama and the way in which Obama’s defenders are interpreting Bill’s attacks. On the latter issue, Marshall’s recognition of the special power Bill Clinton holds within his party answers in part his (Marshall’s) complaint that Obamaniacs want to protect their precious flower from any and all injuries. They mean something different when they come from Bill Clinton. Every time he goes after Obama he hands political-ad fodder to the GOP. And, as Marshall notes, it’s unseemly.
Still, while Obama ought to defend himself, he’s making a serious mistake by continuing to paint himself as a victim. (And Bill Clinton continues to embarrass himself by playing the victim to Obama’s defensive attacks.) Marshall’s right: this is hardball. Obama is also erring by focusing too much on responding to the Clintons’ attacks. Of course that’s the point of attacking–why political attack ads work so well. But I agree with Jean that Obama has held up fairly well against the two-headed candidate.
Would Obama fall into the same trap of ineffectuality as Carter did? Who knows? It certainly isn’t a given, any more than Hillary’s future as a president who will spend her administration paying off political debts accumulated over the past…what is it? thirty-five years. Both potential outcomes are worth thinking about though.
Dear Peggy,
Bill Clinton–who, like me, is Georgetown ’68–is a greatly unattractive human being. I am struggling to evaluate Hillary independently of Bill. But Hillary’s campaign, since Iowa, is making it extremely hard for me to do that. In any event, I fear that Hillary will lose to McCaim, who, like Obama but unlike Hillary, is popular with independents and even some from the other party. I say I fear that Hillary will lose to McCaim, but, perversely, I also am attracted to that possibility–on the theory that her and Bill’s humilating loss would teach us Democats an important though painful lesson–and thereby pave the way for Obama in 2012.
Be well.
Michael
Mike, Hilary maintained in the debate that Obama said two things, and she agreed with what he said about Reagan. That provoked responses about her being disingenuous, and she never got to the second thing that Obama said. (“for the last 10 or 15 years, the Republican party has had the ideas, confronting conventional wisdom.”)
Try it this way: ‘Pius XII was a Pope of great ideas, and for the last 45 years the Church has been trying to assimilate the fruit of his leadership.’ If I disagree with the 2nd part, am I disagreeing with you about Pius XII? Don’t you think John XXIII should be allowed to say he did something for the Church 45 years ago?
The media is clueless in this discussion because they think it is just about Reagan, even though they know the Clintons agree with Obama about that part of his statement. I have not heard anyone in the media criticize Obama for trying to wipe out Clinton’s presidency as an afterthought. I think Bill Clinton has the right to respond that he did do something in his administration. I even think he should be allowed some measure of anger at Obama’s attempt to trivialize his years in office.
Jean,
I think Obama is the one who has been duped by the Reaganites. They are the ones who hold that Republicans have had all the ideas for the last 15 years, a proposition Obama echoed.
Bill Clinton rightly disagreed by asserting that his administration was important and served the country well. That, not Reagan, was the point on which they disagreed.
You can disagree with Clinton, but still see that it is appropriate for him to respond when a Democratic presidential candidate tries to write him out of history.
Jim, you’re mistaken. This is what H. Clinton said at the debate: “The facts are that he has said in the last week that he really liked the ideas of the Republicans over the last 10 to 15 years, and we can give you the exact quote.” Do you think that’s a fair summary of what Obama said?
Part of the reason you don’t see anyone criticizing Obama for “trying to wipe out Clinton’s presidency as an afterthought” is that he did no such thing. You’re being dramatic. To the contrary, in the same debate, he praised aspects of the Clinton administration (he’s done so elsewhere, too).
What is telling is that bloggers here consistently find fault with the candidate they don’t favor and merit with the one they favor. Emotion do rule.
The projections are in in SC and Obama is the ovewhelming pick, big time. The pundits see the overwhelming votes for Obama by blacks as being dangerous for Clinton. It may be the opposite where a huge white backlash occurs.
At any rate, let’s see how these projections stand up.
Grant-
I do not know if Senator Obama was trying to tarnish President Clinton’s legacy or not, but it is undeniable that President Clinton is obviously very sensitivity to the historical record of his White House years. I think the Clintons’ have very brilliantly, as your quotes show, been able to turn the topic from President Clinton’s terms in office to Regan’s.
Interesting: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/01/26/exit-polls-bill-clintons-effect/ (H/T Andrew Sullivan)
Also interesting: Obama did much better among white voters than the polls predicted. The young white vote was key for him, but overall Hillary only beat him among whites by a couple percentage points. What was that about a white backlash, Bill?
P.S. What is this about: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064875.php
Margaret-
The news pages of the NYT are “anti-Hillary”? Say it ain’t so. I am aghast to learn that the “news” pages of the NYT have an ideological/political agenda!
Maybe you are fishing for straws, Grant. Edwards got nothing of the white vote. Do you think those votes would go for Obama? Secondly, the reference to Jackson is valid since he did not do as well in the country at large.
Of course this makes great copy for Obama people to make it a race issue. But you can’t have it both ways.
Just amazing how the pundits who have egg on their face, big time, will not stop from being dogmatic.
Again, all that money going to Obama is not from people who do not have self interest at heart.
Obama’s speeh was heartening; it was great! This leaves open the question: Can he govern? We won’t know unless he wins.
Grant asked: This is what H. Clinton said at the debate: “The facts are that he has said in the last week that he really liked the ideas of the Republicans over the last 10 to 15 years, and we can give you the exact quote.” Do you think that’s a fair summary of what Obama said? <<
Grant,
I do think that is a fair reading of Obama’s remarks. He said of Reagan: “He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it…he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”
In that context, his succeeding remarks about the Republicans having all the ideas and challenging conventional wisdom certainly seem positive. It apparently is inaccurate to read his remarks as approving those ideas, but it is not an unfair reading.
For the record, I am not a supporter of Hilary Clinton. I just think this article by EJ Dionne caps a week of collosally stupid news reporting that unjustly treated her worse than it treated Obama. His remarks about Reagan slighted Bill Clinton in a way that justifies the response to some extent. But Mr Dionne, along with everyone else I have seen, has been unable to recognize that Obama was talking about Clinton as well as Reagan, and in a particularly unflattering way.
You have got to be kidding, Bill. You’re amazing. I’m not fishing for anything. I’m simply reporting the exit polls. Maybe they’ll end up being wrong, but judging from the blowout, I tend to doubt it. I don’t know whom Edwards’s votes would go for, and neither do you. The reference to Jackson is silly. Lots of candidates have won several states and lost the nomination. Why pick Jackson? You don’t think it’s because he’s black, do you? Not to mention the fact that Jackson pulled between five and ten percent of the white vote. Obama won about a quarter.
P.S. Obama’s speech…easily his best.
Jim McK, as you can tell, I disagree. Obama didn’t say he “really likes” the GOP ideas. Don’t forget, Hillary Clinton followed up her rendition of Obama’s remarks with, “we can give you an exact quote,” obviously implying that she was accurately characterizing his remarks. As you concede, she was not. I remain unconvinced by your rather bold assertion that Obama “was trying to wipe out Clinton’s presidency as an afterthought.” He’s not stupid. Neither is E. J. Dionne.
Michael Perry: condolences about Georgetown from a graduate of LU (Chicago).
You wrote: “I say I fear that Hillary will lose to McCaim, but, perversely, I also am attracted to that possibility–on the theory that her and Bill’s humilating loss would teach us Democats an important though painful lesson–and thereby pave the way for Obama in 2012.”
Four years of McCain does not look promising–even if he survived them. He is a war monger; perhaps better than the ones in office right now, but a war-monger nonetheless (once a warrior always….). The Dems should eschew humiliating experiences (if they are capable) and work to fix the country (insofar as any political leaders can). I think Hillary (with Bill as mayor of NYC–as mentioned above) has a good chance of doing that. If Barack is the Democratic candidate in 2008, I will vote for him hoping that his lack of experience will be overcome by the desire of a majority of Americans to help him succeed in governing us–actually more than a majority, 61 percent.
P.S. It is of course wholly possible that whoever is elected president in 2008 will be lucky to survive one term in office if the economy doesn’t get its legs and right itself. A lot rides on his/her sang froid and ability to appoint economic advisors, secy of treasury, etc. who know what they’re doing. Honestly, Mr. Paulson does not inspire much confidence.
And if Mr. Bernake knows what he’s doing, which is up for grabs, he also is about to become part of the problem rather than part of the solution(S).
Margaret-
Senator McCain is a war-monger?? And apparently all veterans are war mongers (“once a warrior…”) – as a veteran myself I can tell you it is precisely attitudes like that for which the Democrats are rightly considered openly hostile to people who volunteer, at risk to their own heath and well being, to serve in our armed forces. Was President Clinton a war monger when he carpet bombed civilians in the Balkans? Or perhaps slaughtering civilians is ok as long as it is done from afar? Or does he just get a pass since he was unwilling to put his own life at risk by serving in the armed forces?
Michael Perry wrote: “I fear that Hillary will lose to McCain.”
Perry has company: see Frank Rich’s column in Sunday’s N.Y.Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/opinion/27rich.html?ref=opinion
MAT: McCain has said he is prepared to stay in Iraq for one hundred years. He has supported George Bush’s every move (albeit being highly critical of Secretary Rumsfeld’s conduct of the war). Not all veterans are war mongers, e.g., John Kerry. This one happens to be. And of course not all veterans are warriors; some are file clerks; some read satellite photos; some do strategic planning.
McCain is an honest man; if he wins, we should gird ourselves for further military action. Not a prospect many Americans support.
The Clintons, politically, are the embodiment of the Democratic Leadership Council.
The DLC was formed to, effectively, move the Democratic party closer to the ideas of Ronald Reagan. In essense, the DLC was the end of the traditional Democratic party values, as represented by FDR. The DLC party was very interested in implementing policies that would attract corporate dollars. And, in fact, Clinton dragged the whole party to the right during his presidency on labor (sold it down the river), free trade (part of its reward to corporations/sell out of labor), defense (Kosovo), tax policy(for example, he reduced the top rate from 32% to 23%), and treatement of the poor (signed a “Welfare Reform” package that has thrown families into homeless shelters). Other examples of the DLC are, besides Bill and Hilary, Joe Lieberman and John Kerry.
In fact, the sorry spectacle of the 2004 Campaign of Kerry is a prime example of the position that the DLC has left for the Democratic party. There was Kerry, trying to out salute the right wing. And, since his conversion to DLC politics came in the middle of his political career, his voting record and, indeed, his whole set of values was a jumble of contradiction. Thus, you have a candidate making rediculuous statements about both his support and his lack of support for the Iraq War.
Does that sound like Hilary to you? It should, because that is what you are going to get from Hilary, or should I put it more honestly, Bill’s third term. There, I said it. Furthermore, if Hil/Bill gets the Democratic nomination, you can be sure that she will do just what Bill always did, run to the right as though a Republican. In fact, an examination of the DLC’s policies are remarkably close to that of the Neoconservatives. And that is exactly what the Democratic party does not need. It also would not win the general election.
Which brings us back to Obama and his statement. Yes, he is correct in saying the Reagan did get Democrats to vote against their economic interest. And he is absolutely correct in his inference that Bill did nothing more than continue most of the policies of Reagan. On every opportunity to stand up to a Republican Congress, Bill out-Republicaned them. It was all about Bill and screw the Democratic constituency.
Obama has the distinct advantage that he was not beholden the the DLC policies of the Clintons. That is why he was able to vote against the Iraq war, while all of the DLC robots voted for it, indeed, nearly all Democrats of the Clinton era voted for it.
Obama should take a page out of the Republican book in energizing the base of the Democratic party. Republicans are not afraid to pander to their right wing, evangelical base to energize the elections. Too many Democrats feel that their isssue have been abandoned by their party. These Democrats see no policies being proposed that are going to transform their lives.
And here we have an election, much like 1992 only more so, where the Democrats are likely to win the Presidency, if the make the right choices. The clamoring for change is a clamoring for a return to the security and fairness that is possible and, indeed, existed in the recent past. Before Reagain dismantled the government, there used to be a housing policy that helped almost all first time homeowners afford their houses without resorting to lending sharks. Colleges were affordable to students. There was not healthcare crisis in this country until the 1980′s, when for profit hospitals emerged along the the lack of legislation that did not reign in the profits and coverage policies of the insurance companies. For industries that were threatened by foreign competition, there was a degree of protectionism against predatory dumping.
So, Obama is correct in his assessment. We need to see how he moves forward with his Democratic platform, if he can overcome the Neoconservative policies of the DLC.
Margaret-
Was President St. John F. Kennedy a war monger when he sent John McCain (aboard the USS Enterprise) to confront the Soviets in the Caribbean? Or perhaps when he began that little conflict in Indochina know in some circles as the Vietnam War?
And I must have missed it – have any of the Democratic candidates called for removing American troops from Korea, Germany, or Japan? They must have since that is your criteria for being a war-monger – and I think it is safe to assume you do not consider them so. And for a bunch of non-war-mongers, I find it quite curious that they keep continuing to fund a military action they do not support. Very courageous of them.
I clearly will not convince you to stop your ad hominems against McCain, but please don’t insult us by calling him “an honest man,” after you lob horrific insults upon him. This is a person, the only one on either side of the isle, in the Presidential contest who understands first hand (and second hand – as you well know he currently has one son attending the USNA and the other in the USMC in Iraq) that war is the singular horror of humanity and is not to be entered into capriciously (such as Clinton, who thinks it is ok for troops to die as long as it is popular in the polls but who will leave them to the wolves when polls tell her to) or cynically (eg Obama, who “was against it from the beginning” but not enough to cut off funding it).
MATT: I believe McCain is an honest man; he is telling his constituents what he would do though many of them are opposed to his policies, immigration perhaps being the most contentious among certain Republicans; but also the war about which many Americans though opposed have relatively little notion of what to do. Why is it an insult for me to say he is an honest man when he tells us where he stands?
Yes, I believe JFK was a war monger (you left out the Dominican Republic and the Bay of Pigs!). So were LBJ, Nixon (Kissinger), and Ronald Reagan. Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were mostly not. Bill Clinton was all too reluctant to go into Bosnia, but I’m glad he did. War-mongering can be a noble calling; I give you FDR and HT.
You may mistake me for a pacifist; I am not. I am skeptical about the war-making capacities and intentions of the United States, especially when so little effort is made to resolve matters by diplomacy, foreign aid, etc.
And since your raised the volunteer army issue some miles above, let me add that I think the volunteer army is a mistake. We should have a draft.
Margaret-
The insults I was referring to were the label “war-monger” (which in ordinary circumstances I would consider an insult) in concert with what I perceived as a shot at his age. I laud your internal consistency in the definition of war-monger. I think I keep getting hung up on the “monger”, but I concede your point, based on your definition, that it can be a noble calling.
On a side note, why were you glad when we bombed Bosnia? Call me an old-fashioned “warrior”, but I am so concerned that so-called “smart bombs” and the like are taking soldiers, sailors, and Marines out of military conflicts and are turning the utter horrors of warfare into a video game. Not to mention the indiscriminate civilian casualties.
I definitely agree with you on the draft – I am not sure why you support it, but personally, I think the all-volunteer military is creating such a disparity based on politics (and to a lesser extent, class) of who serves and who doesn’t, that commitments of our military are seen as just another partisan issue. In addition, to my point above, to many, as we keep dehumanizing warfare it is seen as more of a game with the burdens and horrors being born by cultural groups who are far removed from the political (on both sides of the aisle) and monied classes, and it makes it so much easier to send our forces into the fray without proper cause (and abandon them to their fate when they bore of it). (As another “plug” for McCain, he has authored several pieces of legislation in favor of national service – not just military, as seen most recently in the Bayh (D) – McCain (R) “Call to Service” Bill, among others).
I find myself appalled, disgusted and infuriated at the scandalous attacks on Sen. McCain that are recited above.
Sen. McCain is an authentic hero as well as a statesman of unassailable integrity. He is a giant compared with all other candidates, especially when compared with the tiresome triplets on the Democrat side—all of whom offer nothing but warmed-over socialism tarted up with mindless radical assaults on human dignity and on family privacy and integrity.
Yes, Sen. McCain has pledged that he will not kowtow to terrorists. Yes, I think we can believe him. Thank God!
JAM: Scandalous attacks?!? Really.
“Sen. McCain is an authentic hero as well as a statesman of unassailable integrity.” Senator McCain is an old-fashioned liberal Republican who has the strength of character to represent those views in a hard-fought political campaign. Unusual but not unprecedented in our political history
He was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five(?) years and came back and continues to serve his country. Good for him. POWS are heroes to their fellow countryman. Dare I point out that he was shot down flying over North Vietnam as I recall on a bombing raid that probably targeted civilians. He was tortured; this makes him one of the firecest opponents of U.S. practices abroad. Sorry he had the experience, glad he learned from it.
“He will not kowtow to terrorists.” If he actually keeps troops in Iraq for the next century he will create terrorists by the thousands.
JoeC,
How is Obama going to move the Democratic party to the left all the while avoiding the old politics of partisanship? Isn’t what you described Bill Clinton doing exactly what Obama’s rhetoric would seem to suggest he wants to do? Find common ground with Republicans?
This is all such a mystery to me.
Admiral Margaret-
I did not realize you were privy to the details of the Senator’s flight mission. I am glad you cleared up earlier that you were not making ad hominem insults towards the Senator. I will not ask, but would presume that when you accuse him of war crimes (“…probably TARGETED civilians,” emphasis mine) it is a compliment not unlike the compliment regarding his impending death or being a war-monger.
Also, I think it would be news to Senator McCain to learn that he is an “old-fashioned liberal Republican,” given that he has an 80-something American Conservative Union rating in his 20 years in the Senate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/27/mccain-warns-there-will_n_83459.html
Grant-
Thank you for the link. I’m not sure if I said it above, but I am in no way saying Senator McCain is a pacifist. Perhaps I am biased due to personal admiration I have for the Senator, but I do not think these remarks you link to (“It’s a tough war we’re in. It’s not going to be over right away. There’s going to be other wars.” and “I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.”) rise to the level of him being a warmonger (as the term is normally understood – he would be included as one under Margaret’s definition which would also encompass every American president since the nation’s founding as well as every current presidential candidate in either party). Wikipedia defines the term as follows:
“A warmonger is a pejorative term that is used to describe someone who is anxious to encourage a people or nation to go to war. It is often used to describe militaristic leaders, or mercenaries, commonly with the implication that they either may have selfish motives for encouraging war, or may actually enjoy war. Some may even admit that their selfishness includes the lust for war for personal satisfaction.”
I just do not see him “encouraging” for war or having some lust for it (e.g. General Patton). Take the following remarks:
“I don’t oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. … I don’t oppose all wars. After September 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly TAKE UP ARMS MYSELF [emphasis mine] to prevent such tragedy from happening again.”
Would the person who made these remarks be considered a warmonger? They reference Patton for goodness sake, who WAS a warmonger with a true lust for warfare. Additionally, the speaker seems quite bellicose with regards to terrorists (which is interesting since he never served in the armed forces, but is suddenly to “take up arms”). The speaker was Senator Obama in remarks in October 2002 delivered at the Federal Plaza in Chicago.
All I am trying to say is if people have a deep personal hatred for the Senator because he is Republican or because he “supports” the current President that is all fine (unfortunate, but who am I to change people’s minds), but why throw questionable pejoratives at him (he may not survive the next four year due to his age, he is a warmonger, he committed war crimes in Vietnam, etc.). Maybe I’m naive, but rather than debate the definition of “warmonger” wouldn’t it be nice to debate the substantive differences of the potential next POTUS?
MAT,
Wikipedia definition of surrender:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_%28military%29
McCain quote:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/24/mccain_criticizes_clintons_white_flag.html
Straight talk?
David-
No, definitely NOT straight talk from Senator McCain. More like election season mudslinging. If you are looking to me to defend the level of political discourse in the US, I am not your person. That’s the whole point to what I’ve been saying – the politicians do enough of the ad hominems, mud slinging, etc., that to do so here distracts from the appeal of this forum (at least for me).