If I were to vote for the best campaign video for Obama, this one would get my vote.
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When McCain jumped on Biden’s recent comment that Obama will be tested soon after he becomes president, he reminded us of JFK’s first few months in office when he was faced with the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was in high school during that time, (I’m not as old as McCain), and I have an abominable memory, so I looked it up online.
I’m glad I did, because I was reminded that the missile crisis was not the first test faced by the president - his first test, which he failed rather badly, was the Bay of Pigs. And it wasn’t a foreign power that tested him - it was the CIA.
Just a few months after his inauguration, Kennedy learned of a CIA plot that had been hatched during the Eisenhower years. The intent was to remove Fidel Castro from power in Cuba, just as previous US covert actions had helped remove the Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 and the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954.
Kennedy’s “test” was to choose between (1) accepting the plan as presented to him, or (2) changing the plan so that it would give him better political cover in case things went wrong, or (3) scrapping the plan completely and deciding to negotiate with Castro instead of attempting to assassinate him. Kennedy chose (2), to our regret.
And this reminded me that a new president inherits many things from previous administrations, including a shadow government filled with spooks and operatives, policies and plans, all created to fit the politics and world view held by his predecessor. Kennedy inherited the plan to invade Cuba, just as Johnson inherited Vietnam, and either Obama or McCain will inherit Iraq and Afghanistan - along with perhaps hundreds of covert operations that normal citizens will never hear about. How the new president faces those challenges can affect us all for many years to come.
If the invasion of Cuba had worked out the way it was supposed to, perhaps Cuba would now be ruled by someone friendlier to US power - but history has shown us that people tend to hold grudges when their leaders are assassinated by foreign governments. If Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh had not been removed from power by a US-backed coup d’état in 1953, would Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now be president?
When Obama taught law at the University of Chicago Law School, he sometimes noted that even the best-reasoned ideas have unintended consequences. That helps me believe that when the CIA director comes to his office next January with a plan that was created during the Bush years, he’ll be able to see beyond the ideology and wishful thinking, and rationally consider the possibility that things may not go exactly as planned. I’m also hoping that he knows his history well enough to know that the most important tests in foreign policy come often from within, rather than without.
You decide…
These reports are important. See The Washington Post:
“Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” President Bush.
Al Qaeda prefers an indefinite U.S. occupation of Iraq and a bellicose U.S. all across the Muslim world to radicalize Muslims to its terrorist cause and drain the U.S. of its financial wealth — what Osama bin Laden calls his “bleed to bankruptcy” strategy. Hence, the reason why, as the CIA eventually concluded, Bin Laden tried to help George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004 by releasing a late-October tape.
And TPM Election Central:
[Richard] Clarke, for his part, recently surmised that Al Qaeda might try to swing the election to McCain, perhaps with a terror attack.
And don’t miss the article on the National Security Network website.
I want to chime in about the Republican campaign’s purchase of a very expensive wardrobe for Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. After all, everyone else is talking about it, so why shouldn’t I?
Politico.com reported that the RNC spent almost $150,000 to make Palin look good on camera, including over $75,000 at Neiman Marcus, almost $48,000 for more clothes purchased in St. Louis, and almost $5,000 for makeup and hair styles.
There’s a temporary uproar on the 24-hour news channels about all that money being spent on high fashion for a “hockey mom.” The pundits are suggesting that it’s hypocritical for someone to call themselves a friend of Walmart shoppers to wear expensive clothes, but these newscasters wouldn’t be caught dead on camera in the kind of outfits you can find at Walmart. And it’s also somewhat ridiculous to suggest that you can’t empathise with the working class while wearing a nice suit.
I think the pundits are simply missing the point. The problem isn’t the clothes, per se. It’s about the money.
I live in a house that cost $75,000 two years ago. In less than two months the RNC managed to spend twice as much money as my house cost on clothes for a vice presidential candidate. Remember, these are the folks who support McCain - and he’s the guy who claims to be so worked up over unnecessary government spending. McCain objects to federal dollars going towards environmental research projects, like the bear DNA project that would help scientists study bear populations, and the famous “overhead projector” for a Chicago planetarium that is known for getting kids excited about the stars, but he has no problem spending a big chunk of the campaign’s limited money on clothes for his running mate.
Back in 2007, McCain’s primary campaign was so close to broke that they dismissed dozens of staffers. Now, as election day is just a few days away, the McCain campaign is hollering about all the money that Obama is spending for ads. It’s not fair, they say, that Obama didn’t accept public financing.
How many more ads (or robo-calls) could the Republicans buy in the next two weeks with that $150,000 Palin is wearing on her back? McCain seems to have a problem when it comes to setting rational spending priorities. (Maybe that’s because his own personal fortune is so large that he’s never really had to stick to a budget before, and doesn’t know how it’s done.)
Obama’s response:
For many weeks now (it feels like years) I’ve been wondering why McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Why would someone who has served the nation with such honor for so long pick a running mate who has difficulty forming a sentence, who has never shown any interest in national or international affairs, who has serious ethical problems, and whose husband once belonged to a secessionist party? (By the way, check out this article in The New Yorker about Palin’s campaign to be chosen, starting right after she was elected governor.)
I think I finally figured it out. I initially assumed it was a purely political move to gain women voters - that McCain must have a deep disdain for women, which led him to the faulty belief that Hillary Clinton followers would automatically switch their devotion to anyone with breasts.
However, I don’t think that’s the reason, or not the only reason, why he picked Palin. I have now come to believe that McCain picked Palin because he has an even deeper disdain for the Religious Right.
From his choice of Palin we can either assume that (1) McCain believes all women are nitwits who will automatically vote for another woman, regardless of her policies or ideas, or we can assume that (2) McCain believes that people with deep, fundamentalist faith will vote for anyone who attends a church that is similar to their own, even if, as Colin Powell suggested today, she has no intellectual curiosity and is clearly not ready to be commander in chief. Or both.
Remember back when McCain spoke out against the “agents of intolerance”? It was only 8 years ago:
I recognize and celebrate that our country is founded upon Judeo- Christian values, and I have pledged my life to defend America and all her values, the values that have made us the noblest experiment in history. But public — but political intolerance by any political party is neither a Judeo-Christian nor an American value. The political… (APPLAUSE)
The political tactics of division and slander are not our values, they are…
(APPLAUSE)
They are corrupting influences on religion and politics, and those who practice them in the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of America shame our faith, our party and our country.
(APPLAUSE)
Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right.
Nice speech, John.
Today, thousands of people picked up their phone and heard ugly robo-calls from John McCain that can only be described as “political tactics of division and slander.”
The Palin pick was the first major sign that McCain was moving towards the dark side - he needs the social conservatives if he has any chance at all of winning, so he chose a running mate who attends a fundamentalist church back home in Wasilla, Alaska - she has the right religious credentials, so to hell with the any other consideration. (Ever notice how McCain says he’s “proud” of Palin whenever he’s asked about her qualifications, but never really tells us why?)
The choice of Palin will probably not fool nearly as many Christians as McCain expects - the social conservatives may love Palin for her beliefs and her spunky personality, but they are no more likely than anyone else to think she’s ready to be president. Many Republicans from the fiscal conservative wing of the party are already jumping ship. I suspect that many social conservatives out in the heartland are also beginning to suspect that Palin was a deeply disrespectful choice (there are, after all, intelligent, well educated and experienced people of faith that could have been chosen instead).
It’s a good thing that Oregon has an all-mail ballot. There are so many measures and amendments on the ballot that it almost feels like an open-book test. My rule of thumb - if Bill Sizemore sponsored the measure, I vote ‘no’. (Does that guy have a job?)
On another note, It looks like Colin Powell isn’t the only one who had good things to say about Senator Obama this week:
“I know Obama loves America,” Palin said on the short flight from Cincinnati to Indianapolis when asked by CBS News whether she thinks the Democratic nominee loves his country as much as she does.
“I’m sure that is why he’s running for president. It’s because he wants to do what he believes is in the best interest of this great nation. I believe that our ticket can do a better job for America as we reduce taxes and rein in government and allow our private sector and our families to prosper, to grow, and to keep more of what they earn and produce so that they can reinvest according to our own priorities. I think that that is best to get the economy back on track. It’s a better agenda for America. But I don’t question at all Barack Obama’s love for this great country.”
Of course, she doesn’t need to call Obama un-American any more - that’s what all those robo-calls are for.
Colin Powell has officially endorsed Obama for president. Here’s why his endorsement matters:
If you watch the entire video of Powell’s endorsement, you’ll see that his decision was not made lightly. He has known John McCain for many years, and has a great respect for him. Both Powell and McCain have military experience, although McCain left the military to serve the US in congress, while Powell went on to become a General in the US Army, National Security Advisor (1987–1989), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993), and the nation’s first African-American Secretary of State (2001–2005). He may be the Republican that both Republican and Democratic Americans respect the most, although it may take a bit longer for some folks to completely forgive him for his UN speech on Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’, a speech that Powell himself calls a “blot” on his record.
(Update, 10/20/08 - Another general comes out for Obama. “Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being acceptable in high office—I would not have hired her for even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency.”)
While listening to Powell’s endorsement interview, notice that he shows a deep concern for the actions and character of the two candidates, and specifically calls McCain out for his negative campaign tactics and the poor judgment he displayed in his selection of an unqualified candidate for Vice President. Although Powell doesn’t specifically use the words “Commander in Chief” in the interview, he clearly believes Obama has the intelligence and character to lead the United States in a time of crisis. McCain, on the other hand, has shown himself willing to divide the country along class and cultural lines, a ‘leadership’ style that cannot be condoned by someone who truly puts America first, as Powell has always done.
History has shown us that people are easiest to control when they’re scared. McCain and the Republican party are doing a fairly good job of transforming our current fear over our financial future into fear of the ’socialist’ and ‘anti-American’ policies of his opponent. I haven’t seen this kind of fear-mongering in American politics since the Goldwater candidacy. Honorable Republican leaders disowned Goldwater then, just as many are doing now, but the class warfare that Goldwater ignited did not go away when that election was over. There are some genies that you just can’t put back in the bottle.
If Obama overcomes the Republican smear campaign and wins this election, many Americans will undoubtedly hold on to the belief, deliberately fomented by the McCain campaign, that Obama represents an insidious anti-American cadre of radicals. If McCain loses the election, there is no doubt that he will try to do the honorable thing and tell the American people that “he didn’t really mean it” when he insinuated that Obama was a baby-killing terrorist - but at that point his followers are unlikely to believe him. That’s why other highly-regarded Republicans, like Colin Powell, will be needed so much in the months following the election.
Colin Powell believes that Barack Obama is the best man to lead America in this troubling time. And one thing Powell understands best is the kind of character it takes to be a true leader.
I confess - one of the reasons I didn’t support Hillary in the primary was the thought of having Bill wandering around the White House with nothing to do. I think Bill was a good president, aside from his zipper problem, but he’s so accustomed to power that it just seemed like it would be too big a job to ‘manage’ him and keep him on the sidelines where he belonged.
Michelle, Cindy and Jill fit our image of a first or second spouse, but Todd is a different kettle of fish. From reports coming out of Anchorage, he sits in on government meetings and he is copied on government policy emails. There’s even a joke in the legislature that comes up when they’re waiting for a decision from the governor’s office - “What would Todd do?”
In the small circle of advisers close to the governor, these people say, Mr. Palin is among the closest, and he plays an unpaid but central role in many aspects of the administration of Ms. Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president. http://www.nytimes.com
So, if Todd is the sort of person who would mess around in government business without being elected to office, and if Sarah is the sort of person who would let him get away with it, we need to look at this as the national security issue that it is. Who is this guy, anyway? Do we want him to have access to classified documents? Do we want him talking to national leaders from other countries? Do we want him influencing one of the most powerful people in the world?
I think the reporters need to go back to Alaska and give this guy a real close look. And McCain needs to tell us, specifically, what measures he’ll take to protect our nation’s secrets from this meddling spouse.
On another note, here’s a take from the Anchorage Daily News, telling us why the McCain campaign is so desperate to keep a lid on the Troopergate investigation:
Why do she and her new handlers in the McCain camp believe there is something in Troopergate that could cost them the election?
The real damage to Palin from Troopergate comes with an injury claim involving trooper Wooten when he hurt his back while in the line of duty.
Independent investigator Steve Branchflower testified recently he believes someone in the governor’s office tried to block Wooten’s workers’ compensation injury benefits….
Here’s why this is all so damaging to the governor. It’s one thing to try to get a trooper fired because you believe he is a danger to the public. But using your considerable power as governor to block the benefits of a former family member you have a long-running dispute with moves this scandal into a new realm.
It becomes about one thing and one thing only, revenge. Not public good, but settling a score.