OPEN UNIVERSITY DECEMBER 29, 2007
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I have not been around much lately, being busy with a long print piece. But, lurking, as an admirer of both Wilentz and Sunstein, I thought they each made a good case, the former against the tone and content of the coverage and the latter on what the substantive arguments might be. While thinking the matter over, I had occasion to look for something Andrew Sullivan wrote on an unrelated matter and came across his cover story on the Atlantic website, which, I thought, was pertinent to the debate. Here is the core argument of the Atlantic's cover story on the candidacy of Barack Obama:
"The logic behind the candidacy of Barack Obama is not, in the end, about Barack Obama. It has little to do with his policy proposals, which are very close to his Democratic rivals' and which, with a few exceptions, exist firmly within the conventions of our politics. It has little to do with Obama's considerable skills as a conciliator, legislator, or even thinker. It has even less to do with his ideological pedigree or legal background or rhetorical skills. Yes, as the many profiles prove, he has considerable intelligence and not a little guile. But so do others, not least his formidably polished and practiced opponent Senator Hillary Clinton ... Every potential president, Republican or Democrat, would likely inherit more than 100,000 occupying troops in January 2009; every one would be attempting to redeploy them as prudently as possible and to build stronger alliances both in the region and in the world. Every major candidate, moreover, will pledge to use targeted military force against al-Qaeda if necessary; every one is committed to ensuring that Iran will not have a nuclear bomb; every one is committed to an open-ended deployment in Afghanistan and an unbending alliance with Israel."
Having dispensed with his policies, foreign and domestic, Sullivan then sets out what he thinks is the case for Barack Obama. I have followed his topic sentences.
"What does he offer? First and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan. Such a re-branding is not trivial--it's central to an effective war strategy ... The other obvious advantage that Obama has in facing the world and our enemies is his record on the Iraq War. He is the only major candidate to have clearly opposed it from the start ... Obama's interlocutors in Iraq and the Middle East would know that he never had suspicious motives toward Iraq, has no interest in occupying it indefinitely, and foresaw more clearly than most Americans the baleful consequences of long-term occupation."
Second, "He is among the first Democrats in a generation not to be afraid or ashamed of what they actually believe, which also gives them more freedom to move pragmatically to the right, if necessary."
"And this, of course, is the other element that makes Obama a potentially transformative candidate: race. Here, Obama again finds himself in the center of a complex fate, unwilling to pick sides in a divide that reaches back centuries and appears at times unbridgeable. His appeal to whites is palpable. I have felt it myself."
--Linda Hirshman
7 comments
I fail to see how Obama's face is going to trump his foreign policy: the "Arab Street" didn't react too well to his suggestion that US troops might enter Pakistan and I wonder what even Bhutto supporters think of his call to cut military aid to Pakistan (does Obama know the BJP is ascendent again in India?) In any event, the irony of Sullivan's infatuation with Obama is that his other endorsement, for Ron Paul, is all about policy and not at all about personality.
- Lymon1
December 30, 2007 at 6:08pm
So you have quoted bits of chunks from--to my head--Sullivan's typically rhapsodic and silly paean to Obama in the interest of considering, as you say, "the case for Obama."
Me, I think the case is wanting, regardless of the Sullivanian rhaspsodies.
But it's your gig here: so what say you?
- basman
December 30, 2007 at 10:22pm
The case for Obama, as presented by Sullivan, is silly, and as thin as the candidate's lack of real political, foreign policy or legislative experience, which Sullivan conveniently avoids getting into because he knows that that suit would be empty... Better to deal in mysticism than to make a case for Obama's qualification for POTUS on the basis of the usual time-tested yardstick: experience. Like the preceding commenter, I wonder what your take is on this debate...I am sure that Sullivan does not need this website to push is fantastic ideas about an Obama presidency. The man has his own blog!!!
- dcshungu
December 30, 2007 at 11:49pm
No ulterior motive; just interested in the way that this serious and important intellectual media player, the Atlantic, thinks that a decision of this importance should be analyzed. Sunstein may be right about Obama. He wrote a typically lovely and convincing essay, but it seems to me that for this to be a cover story at the Atlantic makes Wilentz's case pretty graphically. More importantly, I don't think any candidate -- or citizen -- is served by the lowering of the discourse to this level.
- LRHirshman
December 31, 2007 at 9:52am
dcshungu --
Since when has "experience" been the timetested yardstick for the presidency? And what do we mean by "experience"? Unless one really privileges being a Governor of a state, and I frankly don't, I would have a hard time agreeing with your assessment. In the 20th century, how many of our presidents would you say had that experience? Bush the Elder, Nixon, Johnson, Ike. Most of the others had comparable records -- let's not elevate but let's nbot diminish time as a state legislature, at least vis a vis a governorship. And let's keep in mind that historians are likely to disagree seriously about the merits of those presidents that did have the greatest experience.
dcat
- derekcatsam
December 31, 2007 at 8:32pm
One of the biggest reasons I'm for Obama is his legislative experience, particularly the Illinois death penalty reform legislation. He appears to be singlehandedly responsible for getting it passed unanimously, which is a feat of superhuman negotiating, rhetorical, and political skill:
www.cnn.com/.../index.html
Why the campaign is not pushing this as hard as I think they should of course baffles me. Particularly with all the grief he gets for pushing "unity" - from the likes of Krugman and Edwards - when unity is what got this legislation passed. Not everyone can do that, of course. But it is the most effective method if you can, and Obama can. Edwards and Clinton can't. Or won't, in some cases. They are more comfortable fighting in the obvious, strictly adversarial sense of the term.
And, as Obama has said in speeches, but which I think flies straight over everyone's pea heads, experience is only a proxy for judgment. So it's only valuable to the extent that it is an accurate proxy. And the level of experience as measured in time-on-the-job of Bush's FP team kind of blows the credibility of that proxy. You need to look at the kind of experience, in a very narrow, case by case way, and then apply it to the job requirements of president. Which Hillary continues to not do every time she bleats [or barks if she's in passionate mode] that she has "35 years" of it.
And I am not including that bit about Hillary as being in Obama's speeches, btw, that's me running with the ball in the obvious direction.
- psantillana
January 2, 2008 at 4:17am
Thanks, Linda Hirshman. Helpful.
- theQ
January 7, 2008 at 3:33pm