Barack Obama launched a new campaign slogan at the January 31, 2008 Democrat primary debate in LA. He said: "I plan to be right on day 1." The slogan is a reference to two things:
- Hillary Clinton's claim that she will be "ready to lead on day 1" and
- the fact that Clinton voted in 2002 to approve Use of Military Force Against Iraq, which allowed Bush to prosecute a disastrous war which is now almost universally opposed among Democratic voters.
The remark drew a laugh and a large positive response. Barack may be tempted to continue this line of attack against Clinton, but I'm not sure it is in the long-term best interest of Barack himself, the Democratic party, or the country.
Below the fold, I ruminate just a bit on the implications of having a president who is "right on day 1." Is that what we want? Why or why not?
On the 28th of October (several weeks after the vote and after Bush had signed the resolutions into law), Obama gave a speech to an anti-war rally in Chicago. In the speech he excoriated the Bush adminstration in no uncertain terms, using many liberal/progressive turns of phrase, e.g., : calling the Iraq war "...the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats...". Strong words. The full text is here:
Throughout this 2008 primary campaign, Obama has tried to capitalize on the difference between his speech and Clinton's vote. The implication is that this speech proves that he somehow saw clearly into the future, while Clinton did not. Or on a less generous note, Obama could be trying to imply that Clinton was, herself, an "armchair warrior ..." but let us be kind and not suspect him of that. He said many things in the speech that others were saying at the time, and that have turned out to be true. But does that really give him an edge over Clinton in the "who's more right" contest? I don't think so:
- Barack wants to equate his speech and Hillary's vote, but are they really commensurate? I think not so much. First, his speech was given to anti-war activists. Clearly he was giving them what they wanted to hear. Things aren't like that in the Senate: you are not surrounded by people who feel exactly as you do. Second, aside from inspiration his speech had no consequences. Zero. He did not have to worry that if he voted the wrong way, and innocent child in a faraway land (or here at home) might die. Votes to authorize war are not something anyone takes on lightly. One knows that some people will die if you go forward, but if one doesn't go forward, others will die. It's a terribly difficult thing to do. By trivializing it into right versus wrong, Obama comes very close to insulting the honor of the men and women who had to make that tough choice.
- Barack seems to want us to believe that foreign policy in an age of dictators, nuclear weapons, and religious extremism is a simple case of answer the question correctly or incorrectly. Two choices: A if you're correct, F if you're incorrect. It is pretty naive to believe that there is only one right answer to complex international situations, as though they are no more than a set of linear algebraic equations with a small set of solutions. What will Barack do when the problem is N equations in N unknowns with random and non-random noise added? Obama was "right" five years ago. Has he been "right" on every call since? "Day 1" is, after all, a future event. Does he believe he'll be right on all future issues as well? I hope not, as that would imply a scarey level of arrogance.
- On the day of the 2002 vote, Hillary had constituents at home in New York. New York city was the site of the 9/11 attacks. New York has a large jewish/pro-israel population. If Hillary was listening to her constituents in 2002, she was certainly hearing a great deal of concern about events in the middle east, about Iraq nuclear capabilities, the security of Israel, and so on. As an elected official, a Senator is not always at liberty to vote his or her conscience. One of the great moral issues of being in a position of public trust is how to walk that thin line between doing what you believe in deeply, versus following the wishes of the people whom you were elected to represent. This issue is so deep, and so crucial, that I would think any new Senator would ponder it seriously on or before the day he/she takes the oath. And yet, Senator Obama talks as though this thought has never crossed his mind.
- I like to read up on what the conservatives are thinking, and recently found this book review: "They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons", Jacob Heilbrunn, Doubleday, 289 pageshttp://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_01_28/review1.html
People with strong doctrines tend to believe they are right, and the neo-cons and George W. Bush are perfect examples. Bush is fond of saying (I paraphrase here): "Look, I don't do things because a poll has said this or that, heh heh, I do what I know to be right." I certainly hope that whoever replaces Bush as president will find a way to be more responsive to the people who elected him/her.
- Finally, many people reading this may not recall the 1964 campaign between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. But I do, and Goldwater's campaign slogan was "In your heart you know he's right." Of course that was a double entendre since Goldwater was somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, but it also spoke to the kind of rigid person Goldwater was: nothing is relative, nothing is negotiable. There is a right, and there is a wrong, and I know which side I am on. Obama might do well to distance himself from that kind of precedent.