Impeach Obama!
Kidding! I kid the Obama people. Ha-ha. We kid because we love.
The quadrennial rite of summer is the turn of the Democratic Party presidential nominee towards "the center." The dispiriting ritual has begun. Inquiring minds may ask, where was our point of departure for this journey? If we were already at the center, how far is there to go, must we go?
Obama hired not one but two D.C. lizard-people to run his vice presidential selection process. The more egregious choice -- James Johnson -- has been forced to withdraw. The other, Eric Holder of Marc Rich fame, is still ensconced, along with the saintly Caroline Kennedy. The problem with Johnson has nothing to do with dime-store concessions from Countrywide. It is that he is standard isssue industrial strength Washington sleaze. He is not the change we have been waiting for. This past Saturday, Washington Post columnist Colbert King concurred these are not the people you want back in power. Understated by King is the fact that if Obama doesn't use them, they will fight him. Party allegiance is just a flag of convenience for this lot.
Obama is actually in a two-front campaign, one against his enemies, the other against his friends. Today we have some friendly advice from Fareed Zakaria, which brings us to . . .
The Foreign Policy Fudge Factory. How did the U.S. get into Iraq? I would suggest a fully participatory role for Democrats and the Clinton Administration, whose international relations lizards are prominently consulting with Obama. This whole sick crew was complicit in holding up Saddam's Iraq as a threat to the U.S., enacting sanctions with tragic impact on innocent civilians, advising Democrats in Congress to declare Saddam international bad guy and provide G. Bush with a blank check for intervention. All of this greased the skids for the excellent adventure to follow. Now we have the same geniuses declaring miraculous, fictitious foresight and promising a new, humane and skillful sort of imperialism. Not in so many words of course.
It is not well appreciated that Obama's fold on FISA is an artifact of a malignant Washington mindset about the U.S. role in the world. For lack of popular consensus critical of the historic policy of seeking to maintain an overwhelming military advantage over all potential adversaries, the Obama Administration will be pushed to the same march of folly as its predecessors. If the public is afraid, it will be susceptible to contraction of civil liberties and Democrats will be obliged to compromise with Republicans, not to mention each other. FISA follows from the imperatives of Empire. Fail to criticize Empire, you get FISA.
That's why I disagree with the estimable Glenn Greenwald (also here. He explains the Democrats' fold as a tactic to build a bigger majority. No doubt such an objective plays a central role in their considerations. But we need to consider why such an arrangement helps build a majority -- why endorsing infringements on liberty is popular. It goes back to why people would accept such a thing.
It is all well and good for Obama to run around denouncing appeals to fear. This sort of talk has far to go if it is to result in a change in public attitudes. Obama's FISA fold is symptomatic of the extent to which we are not the change we have been waiting for. It's not just him. It's us too. Rather than dwell on the surface issue of FISA, MoveOn and friends ought to zero in on the underlying problem of Obsessive Compulsive Intervention Disorder.
The rational case for Empire is the idea that if the U.S. does not assert itself, others will fill the vacuum. For the sake of argument, we could assume this worry is founded in good faith. The dubious implication is that interference by others in world affairs will somehow bear fruit where the miserable failures of the mighty U.S. have not. Alternatively, we get appeals to our humanitarian impulses, from the likes of Zakaria, to the effect that with good intentions the U.S. must continue, like Uncle Ernie, to fiddle around, fiddle around.
Could Obama run against the full spectrum of Washington and Wall Street elites, in addition to John McCain? No doubt it would be exceedingly difficult and all of the moves described here can be rationalized. But what is in question here is justifying an adherence to the status quo.
It remains for the free-thinking to continue a critical discourse that generates pressure on candidates to wise up. It would be better for Obama to win by a smaller margin with a more substantive mandate. A victory premised on commanding universal agreement is a mandate to do nothing in particular. In the implied vacuum, elites will propose self-interested policies disguised as projects of universal betterment. Critical voices should continue to force the candidate to scale back grandiose visions of an activist, humanitarian U.S. role in the world. The more outrageous the foreign military adventure contemplated, the more sanctimony is ladled over it.
Any such activism grows out of the barrel of a gun and tends to backfire.
I was unaware there was any other kind. It's all those pesky unintended consequences, (mostly foreseeable), that have given American Imperialism a bad name.
Right? Right?!
June 23, 2008 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Democrats with a substantial Congressional majority won't back the aggressive imperialist dreams of a Republican President who barely slipped into the White House. And John McCain won't likely embark upon humanitarian crusades. So if we want to keep America out of foreign adventures, we should ---
Elect John McCain!
June 23, 2008 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
facetious, wily, and insightful. however....
The Democratic majority currently seems to be content to allow the Most Despised Human in the World to continue to destroy this country and Iraq (despite the economic idiocy (orthodoxy) of Krugman et.al promoting the utter and transparent bullshit that our economic miseries are not joined at the hip with the George's Excellent Iraq Adventure). Why a Democratic Majority would call the brakes on the demented (but, popular by comparison with Miserable Failure) McSame is a logical leap I cannot follow.
America's constitutional government is broken. The country club set in both parties do not seem to want to look at the reasons. And somewhere in the analysis has to be the grotesque power of Corporate America on all aspects of American life. Trying to reform lobbying and political contributions will never work; the rich and powerful will not willingly relinquish control; but expropriation might have a salutory effect.
June 24, 2008 8:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Guns don't backfire, engines do, but the rest was terrific. FISA, war funding, more war and more of the same. Continuity you can believe in.
June 23, 2008 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, quit throwing a monkey wrench in the gears!
June 23, 2008 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's an Edward Abbey thing.
June 24, 2008 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
......and signed, Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Obama haters. Her minons want to now blame Obama for the Elian Gonzalez fiasco. But Cuban television (still broadcasting in black and white) recently showed the youngster (now 14 years old) strolling along the beaches wearing his dad's t-shirt that says, "Marxist Pigs"
June 23, 2008 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, Obama did like Ricky Ricardo on Lucy reruns when he was growing up. And to think, Cuba is just now getting those shows! (Shouldn't that tee shirt say: Cerdo Marxista!)
June 23, 2008 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
The status quo is changing but the change is coming from abroad. Our establishment is beginning to look like the characters in those old movies about the decline of the British Empire. Well, not quite, I'm not so sure they can do the decline with such class. The photo ops of Dubya and the Saudis aren't encouraging.
June 23, 2008 9:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
mariann2 -- If it isn't clear, in my view Ms Clinton would be much worse than BHO in foreign policy. The sooner we see the last of the Clintons, the better.
June 23, 2008 10:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
God your avatar freaks me out. I almost didn't read the article after I saw it.
I have nothing else of substance to offer at this time.
June 24, 2008 3:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I see what you mean.
June 25, 2008 1:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
If Elia Gonzalez has NY future baseball skills, he'll be over here in America before you know it, so all that trouble and whinning for nothing....
Obama will probably govern from the middle if he makes it to the White House. He does sensor himself. He took liberties during the primaries but by Novembre, he'll be throwing more of his 'Change' ideas under the bus.
Hopefully, the Obama campaign learned a few things during the primaries when it came to political advertising and the mass infusion of money spent in Pennsylvania. Just the sure geography and the calendar made it difficult to almost impossible to campaign in the bigger states to the strategy used in Iowa and New Hampshire - going door-to-door, shaking every hand, lunch counters, etc., but the results showed a better return on the money than the more impersonal and removed approach of advertising on television. Either way, all efforts aim to cover the most important pillars of winning - authenticity, trust, honesty, and shares the voter’s values.... and by the way, the real reason for bypassing Federal funding for his general election bid is to have enough money and resources to fight off the smears of the mainstream (corporate) media since it looks like the Republican are gonna be a little short on cash and their 527 swift boaters and attack dogs.
June 23, 2008 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Everyone is throwing Obama under the bus because he cannot, they presume, bring the change "we" wanted. I have to ask, when did the righteous liberal netroots decide that we all had the same idea for change?
My standards at this point, are fairly low. Change, to me, means not Bush and not McCain, whose policies and mentality are identical to Bush. That's it. why does it have to be more than that?
But I like Obama because he's kind of hot, and he talks real good too. And he opposes ridiculous stunts like suspending the gas tax and attacking Iraq for shits and giggles. And he isn't hated world wide (like Hillary was and McBush is).
So that's it. I propose that we stop using the word "change" in such a way that it suggests we all have the same, ridiculously high standard for what that means. For some of us, it just means change...
June 24, 2008 3:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Aha! Now we understand your problem!
June 25, 2008 8:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
My comment above was supposed to be:
My standards at this point, are fairly low.
Aha! Now we understand your problem.
Some would say it makes more sense WITH the quote than without. Others might not see any sense (or humor) in it either way.
June 25, 2008 8:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
This blog feels like more sophomoric and self-important pronunciations not based on historical or political reality. It boils everything down to black and white, erasing the shades of gray that are all over the damn place. This is why progressives have been in the political wilderness for 28 years.
It would be very nice to throw out the old and bring in the new in an orgy of progressive fire, but it will never happen. We are working to change a system that has been in existence for 230 years. We are working to change a massively corrupt status quo that took everyone of those years to develop. All of that takes time.
Without introducing a decidedly more violent remedy to the mix, exactly what do you suggest as being the way we get this progressive party started?
Might it not be winning first?
June 24, 2008 5:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
"This blog feels like more sophomoric and self-important pronunciations not based on historical or political reality. It boils everything down to black and white, erasing the shades of gray that are all over the damn place. This is why progressives have been in the political wilderness for 28 years."
Again, classic analysis. You should take this over to the uber-hysterical, anti-Obama, "sky is falling" cesspool at HuffPo.
June 24, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
This blog feels like more sophomoric and self-important pronunciations not based on historical or political reality.
And you have a problem with that?
June 25, 2008 8:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nobody is throwing BHO under any bus. Lack of criticism will reinforce his drift towards the center and beyond.
There is no problem in general with incrementalism. The idea is to push for a more full-throated criticism of interventionism, and less reliance on interventionism's advocates for advice.
Once you realize Democrats were accomplices in the Iraq blunder, the need for this should be clear.
JEM -- Regarding Reagan, you left out the latter part of my statement, that in the vacuum elites would impose their own policies. Moreover, Reagan's campaign message -- reduced domestic spending and more on defense -- had some continuity with his Administration's policies.
June 24, 2008 6:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
He didn't say that he would cut domestic spending and spend more on defense. He proposed to start a brand new day. He campaigned on hope and optimism and beating the Soviets. For all his faults as a president, the man was a masterful campaigner.
As progressives, we must allow for competing thoughts in our head. We need to think strategically and tactically. We must plan as well as attack.
We must hold lofty goals and expect some compromise to get there. We must describe a new vision for America and understand that everyone might not get it at the same time. We must articulate why progressive policies will make this country great again while at the same time knowing that America has already heard all this shit before under the republicans and government didn't deliver.
I don't disagree that we should make our opinions known to both our own senators (if you have them, I don't) and Obama's campaign as well. But all this sanctimonious crap about the Constitution from a group of people who probably didn't turn out for primaries until this year is too much to take.
This country was violating the Constitution before the ink was dry on the Preamble.
June 24, 2008 6:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your ability to be wrong on basic factual information is impressive. You rarely miss the mark!
Reagan most certainly ran on cutting domestic programs. He never hid that. He simply didn't get specific about which ones he wanted to cut. Once elected, he went after nearly every domestic spending program with a vengeance in combination with the tax cuts and increased defense spending. All of this, as Stockman made quite clear, was to bring the Federal government as close to bankruptcy as possible, leaving Congress little choice but to eliminate nearly all domestic spending in order to pay for the debt Reagan created in the future. They didn't count on the economic boom of the Clinton years that righted the budget. This is why Bush's tax cuts were so much bigger than Reagan's. Norquist, et al thought they needed to go much, much farther with the debt so regardless of economic recovery, the budget pressure would be so great that the only ongoing major programs beyond paying off the debt would be defense and social security. This is well known and well documented.
June 24, 2008 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can't have it both ways and your ability to parse a point until it screams in mercy is amazing. I am having a tough time staying civil when you are such an asshole with your replies.
Reagan ran on sunshine and butterflies. He ran on non-specifics, as you admit. Can't have it both ways and is beside the point as well, which is people win elections by saying whatever they need to say to get in.
Something they govern like progressive, Carter, and sometime they govern like maniacs, Reagan, but that doesn't change the fact winning a presidential race in America is more than standing on national TV and throwing a temper tantrum.
Idiot.
June 25, 2008 5:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
The problem for Democrats has been incrementalism. 40 years of incremental steps to the right. It continues, the FISA bill only being the most recent example. The only thing progressive about our party is it's progress towards the right.
June 24, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
You reminded me of how Bush won some votes doing that in 2000 against Gore.
June 24, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
oops that comment was supposed to have this quote with it:
June 24, 2008 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
All those folks who would have you go along with going centrist. I am so tired of centrism. A little secret, in some places I call myself a moderate to point out that my views ARE MODERATE, but they sure as hell aren't American centrist. If we keep pulling to the "center," we will be over on the other side of Dred Scott along with the so called libertarians.
Obama is a politician, those of us who support him but didn't drink the koolaide know that. We are after a large Democratic majority for policy purposes and so we can then shed the likes of folks such as Steny Hoyer. But getting the Democratic majority is just the first step.
Losing FISA before we even get the first step is damn depressing, but it isn't the end of the world. FISA can be reversed and even if we cannot put Bush up for war crimes, we can export his minions to countries that will try them.
June 24, 2008 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. We need to all understand the Latin term sine qua non or without which, it would not be.
June 24, 2008 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed.
But we can go after Bush for war crimes. This bill does nothing to prevent that, and confers immunity on no one but Telecoms. And Obama was the only willing to even SUGGEST investigating the Bush cabal in the next Administration. Will he do it? I don't know. I may just have to learn to live with it if he doesn't. But I sure as hell know McCain won't, and Hillary would not go on record saying she would.
I propose that we do this the way all normal, non-fucked up beyond all recognition Congressional investigations are done, from the bottom up. Congress goes right for the top by issuing a subpoena to Rove, and then sulks when he flips them the bird. But that is not how you investigate crime. You start with small fish, in quasi-related investigations, and work your way up, flipping people along the way.
The Siegelman case is a great start.
Remember how Starr started with an Arkansas land deal and ended with an oval office blow job? Same thing.
June 24, 2008 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's some more "under the bus" stuff in the news today. Looks to me like this was sparked by Congressman Keith Ellison being willing to talk to the New York Times about his concerns.
June 24, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, don't know what to say about this. It is my understanding that the person was responsible for the photo gaffe was an unpaid volunteer acting on her own, and it didn't come from above.
That being said, he is damned no matter what he does here. He is going to have to visit a mosque at some point before the election, so why not do it now when his numbers are so high? I just don't think not accepting the invitation is going to work. He will have to sooner or later.
But we all know why he will be crucified by the MSM as soon as he does it. And we all know that McCain's failure to do anything but advance a foreign policy premised upon the murder of muslims won't hurt him at all. He is Telflon John. He will get a pass, not only from the MSM but also from the same American Muslim community that is now criticizing Obama. And I suspect the reason for that, at least from the standpoint of American Muslims, is that they would no sooner invite McCain to a Mosque as they would invite Bush, a war criminal who has done everything in his power to stir up anti-Muslim hate.
June 24, 2008 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
This may be somewhat relevant to our current discussion:
Matthews just showed the results of a Gallup poll which polled on several issues including healthcare, economy, energy, Iraq War, and terrorism.
Obama leads in every category (+25 on healthcare, +16 on economy, +19 on energy, tie on Iraq), except he is tied on Iraq and, here is the kicker: Behind by 19 POINTS on terrorism!!! 19 points! Again, I am NOT defending this weak ass bill. I am just suggesting we remember that Obama has NO CHOICE but to vote for it. It is up to the others in his party to help him here, while helping Americans too.
June 24, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I am just suggesting we remember that Obama has NO CHOICE but to vote for it."
That was the logic of Hillary and other Democrats on the Iraq War vote and the Patriot Act and continuing to fund the war and...... There's rarely an easy vote on civil liberties or defense. I eagerly await our war with Iran. I am sure it will have broad bipartisan support. After all, it's not like there is any leadership with the courage to change.
June 24, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eagerly????? I think we know you better than that, 'Belle.
June 25, 2008 8:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
June 25, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am afraid I have to strongly disagree with you about Jim Johnson. Quite frankly, I don't think you know a thing about him.
I do not know him at all well, but have run in parts of the same Minnesota Circles. Back in the early 1960's he was Elected Student Body President at the U of Minnesota, and then worked for several years (I think while in Grad School) for the National Student Association. He was there in the mid 1960's when Ramparts broke the relationship between CIA and National Students Association (also NSA) though it soon became apparent that Johnson was not one of the NSA officers who was witting about the CIA relationship. One of the NSA projects CIA funded was a student exchange for former presidents of national student associations in third world countries -- and once the Ramparts stuff was out, many of the former grantees were in extreme danger, in fact, two of them were murdered. By that time, Johnson had gone to DC to work for Walter Mondale (Humphrey was VP) and Johnson was able to get to both and help those who were in very serious danger. Johnson did some staff work for Hubert when he was VP, and later when he returned to the Senate, but mostly he worked for Mondale -- worked for him when he was on the Church Committee -- something that was at least in part motivated by really knowing the consequences of that NSA/CIA relationship. Johnson went on to the WH when Mondale became VP, and worked for him for four years, and then of course worked on the 1984 campaign.
Mondale and Carter re-invented the Vice Presidency, and Jim Johnson was...well present at the creation, and over the years he has collaborated with Mondale in recording their commentaries on what they were creating. In the past four years Mondale has become one of the most outspoken critics of the mess that Cheney and Bush have made of their partnership -- though I think you have to live in Minnesota and listen to Minnesota Public Radio to pick up on all the conferences and speeches where Mondale and sometimes Johnson have pushed their criticism.
I think the swift-boating of Johnson's role in vetting potential VP's for Obama is quite a loss to the campaign, largely because I don't believe there is anyone who has given more serious thought to the nature of the Job. Johnson had the chance to see a most unhappy Vice Presidency, that of Hubert -- and also one of the most successful, Carter/Mondale. It is a matchmaker's job driven by the need for no surprises.
For several years, Carolyn Kennedy has also been deeply interested in studying these issues. Did you know that Carolyn is a Lawyer, specialized in Constitutional Law -- she has written two books, and she organized a symposium at the Kennedy School with Harvard Sponsorship that involved many historians and political scientists, and collaboration from a number of Presidential Libraries? Carolyn Kennedy wrote the introductory book for the three day symposium, (Which was on C-Span) and has collaborated with Johnson and Mondale in presenting some of the materials at the Humphrey Institute. Referring to her as "saintly" clearly overlooks and diminishes virtually all of her work and credentials. She is no longer the cute little girl with the pony on the WH lawn in the comic book.
June 26, 2008 3:24 AM | Reply | Permalink