Obama
-
Thoughts on the debate
On the whole, I think they both came out well. Obama is clearly not at his best in this forum, and does not think on his feet that well. His response to the economics questioning was stunted and halting, but largely came around during the foreign policy portion. McCain was consistent throughout. The real shocker (to me anyway) was Obama supporting Ukrainian and Georgian membership in NATO, which is truly a horrible idea. Of course, McCain seemed to support it too.
There was little I actually agreed with in most of the debates; both of them seemed to like the status quo of America the GloboCop, and neither seemed to have any meaningful problem with the Wall Street bailout, but it could have been a lot worse (for America). On the whole, it seemed like McCain was the honest authentic guy, and Obama was an honest authentic guy’s attourney which is the usual pattern.
More thought later most likely.
-
Thursday link roundup
- Church Sign Wars – very good
- What Russia Wants – written by my old Boss at Cato
- The path to citizenship – it makes illegal immigration much more understandable
- Making money twice – a very good read
- Julian Sanchez put it very well with
we’re perpetually told the fundamental cause of the ongoing meltdown is Wall Street “greed,” as though that somehow counted as an explanation. How, pray, would we describe it if mortgage lenders had rejected many more applications from lower-income folks, on the grounds that they were poor risks? Well, greed, of course. Pretty much whatever they did, they’d be doing because they expected it to maximize their profit; the issue is their judgement, not their motives. Or put another way: The problem isn’t that people were greedy, it’s that they weren’t very good at being greedy.
- Ron Paul fades into further irrelevance
- More Bailout – Yglesias posits what is hopefully a liberal dilemma
Simply put, if congressional Democrats manage to acquiesce in a plan that spends $700 billion on a bailout while doing nothing for average working people and giving the taxpayer virtually no upside in a way that guarantees that even electoral victory would give an Obama administration no resources with which to implement a progressive domestic agenda in 2009 then everyone’s going to have to give serious consideration to becoming a pretty hard-core libertarian.
- A nice article on Obama’s community organizing days – notices the lack of anything measurable.
-
Profiles in lameness
As Congress seems to be willing to give the Treasury secretary a check for 700 billion with no strings attached, where are our two main nominees? As far as I can tell they’re not in the Senate doing the job they were actually elected to do. And we’re expected to respect their “experience” and “judgment”?!?!
-
Obama equals Bush III
Check out this clip of Obama (accurately) decrying the false umbrage over some “lipstick on a pig” comment, and longing for a return to “issues”. Think of the implications. The McCain campaign is fighting the war they’re in, while Obama campaign fighting the war they wish they were fighting. It’s quite similar to most of the Bush presidency, and by extension saying that your enemies hate you for your “virtues”.
Just imagine what the debate would be like if the candidates had clear, consistent ideologies (a la Wilson, Reagan (sort of clear) or Polk) or clear records of achievement, like Bill Gates, David Petraeus, or Andrew Carnegie. Instead it’s a desperate attempt to convince the electorate that if elected they’ll pull off five consecutive miracles when they can’t even do simple card tricks.
In reading over this, I realize that the above paragraphs aren’t particularly clear, but I’m in a rush.
-
Palin the tethered goat
It seems to me that the McCain campaign is using Sarah Palin to draw out the worst of the democratic leaning population, which will cause the not that interested voter to associate the Obama campaign with the Move-On/Cindy Sheehan crowd, and hence be turned to Obama. Pretty clever.
On another note, isn’t Palin a wonderful blank canvas on which people can project their hopes and desires? She’s the equal of Obama in that regard.
-
Seldom mentioned Obama fact
He went to prep school. That’s neither here nor there, but I don’t think I’ve seen it mentioned before.
-
North To Alaska!
Sarah Palin was a good choice. Why?
The voters have made it clear that they do not care about experience this year. If they did, then the election would be between Richardson (governor, former cabinet secretary) and Romney (former governor, businessman and olympic organizer). Nor do they care about ideology, if they cared about that, the campaign would be between Fred Thompson (remember him), the closest follower of Reagan running in 2008, and Clinton, who basically (along with Bill) defined the modern Democratic party.
Instead it’s a contest of tribes.
The Republicans quickly split off into the evangelicals (with Huckabee as their champion) vs Everybody Else (featuring St John of Arizona).
The Democrats presented a more interesting conflict. They split off into the Black vote, the white working class vote, the over 35 woman vote, the progressive (aka elitist) vote, with a little “Return to Normalcy” tribe (sort of like the Druse or Mormons) sprinkled in.
The Black and Progressive tribes roped in the Return to Normalcy tribe and triumphed over the over 35 woman and white working class tribes, and annointed their chosen one. (On a side note, isn’t tribal warfare in America better than in other countries?)
McCain accurately saw the rules of the game as they are currently defined and saw a chance to pick off the dead enders in the WWC and over 35 woman tribes, and took it. I still think Obama is going to win in November, but it’s going to be much closer than it would be if he nominated, say, Romney or Ridge.
-
A good Obama post from David Friedman
David Friedman makes this well put observation about Obama, to wit:
His supporters interpret his decision to go into community organizing instead of joining a law firm as evidence of his good moral character. In fact, it is nothing of the sort. For a young man aiming at a career in politics, especially a black man in an urban setting, community organizing is an investment, a way of building up contacts and other resources that will be useful at the next stage of that career.
To be fair, I should also say that considering Obama’s behavior as that of an aspiring politician weakens the argument being made by some on the right about his past association with people on the left, in particular William Ayers, an unrepentant ex-Weatherman. The Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, which is where I grew up, is the sort of place where an ex-Weatherman can easily enough be a prominent figure. You don’t start a career in politics by going out of your way to refuse to shake the hands of people who lots of your constituents respect, or even refusing to sit with them on a board of directors or share a platform with them–not, at least, unless you are aiming at a deliberate political gesture. And making a point of how hostile you are to left wing radicals, while it might be useful for a Democrat running for President, would not be prudent for a Democrat seeking political support in Hyde Park.
I’ve often thought the Rev. Wright thing was overblown too. Is it imaginable that an up and coming politician would pick a fight with a popular minister in his district? I’ve never heard of it happening anywhere else. Local politics is simply not a principle game, and Obama is a politician.
And the Democratic convention can be summed up with “I think the stripper really likes me!”
-
Obama, Ayers and history
An interesting article about Bill Ayers and the WeatherMen. I would expect to hear lots more about this as the election nears. The obvious parallel is McCain being associated with abortion clinic bombers.
-
The agitator brings the Biden pain
Biden’s record on other criminal justice and civil liberties issues is just as bad. Opponents of the federalization of crime might note that the 1994 crime bill he sponsored created several new federal capital offenses. Biden also wants to expand federal penalties for hate crimes. He supports a federal smoking ban. His position on the federal drinking age is, and I quote, “absolutely do not” lower it to 18. He believes “most violent crime is related to drugs” (if he had said “drug prohibition,” he’d be closer to the truth). Biden also has an almost perfect anti-gun voting record. He said last year he favors “universal national service,” either in the Peace Corps or the military. Sounds like conscription to me. He says he’s opposed to the PATRIOT Act, but he voted for both the original bill and its re-authorization in 2005.
Foreign policy? Biden voted for the war on Iraq. Yes, he’s opposed to it now (and I like the partition plan he pushed in the primaries). But he didn’t vote correctly when it counted most. Biden also voted to send troops into Darfur. He wants to enlarge NATO. He voted in favor of the air strikes in Kosovo. He voted to strengthen the trade embargo against Cuba. His seems to be a meddling, interventionist, Clinton-esque foreign policy. His first instinct seems to be that the U.S. military’s objective include some vague notion of “doing good in the world.” Never mind the disastrous consequences that notion has reaped over the years.
I obviously disagree with Biden on a host of economic and regulatory issues, too (though he does seem to be fairly decent on free trade). But that’s to be expected. My problem with Biden is that he’s not even good on the issues the left is supposed to be good on. He’s an overly ambitious, elitist, tunnel-visioned, Potomac-fevered Beltway dinosaur, with all the trappings. He may well have been the worst possible pick among congressional Democrats when it comes to the drug war and criminal justice.
Meg Whitman seems like a more obvious choice now.
