Quin Hilyer of the American Spectator nails it:
There is something special about this country. The United States is exceptional. We are blessed by the good Lord, and in turn we have done more, far more, than any other people to spread freedom across the globe, and prosperity across the globe, and human rights across this great good Earth. We are a particularly good people -- and John McCain understands all this and believes it with every fiber of his being, down to his very marrow, in a way that is deeply spiritual in nature. There is nothing fake about McCain's belief in American Exceptionalism. His belief in this is as genuine, and as deeply felt, as is a son's love for his father. He will defend this country, fight for this country, with every last breath in his body.
And McCain has a record of making the right calls, again and again, when it comes to securing the American national interest around the world. He was right to back Ronald Reagan to the hilt in the greatest foreign challenge of the past 60 years, namely the victorious effort to win the Cold War despite the strenuous and at times vicious opposition of the American Left. But he was right to oppose Reagan when Reagan, with all good intentions, decided to station Marines in Lebanon. McCain broke with his entire party, and warned that the Marines would be sitting ducks, and voted against the deployment. Tragically, McCain was right: More than 200 Americans died in Lebanon in a suicide truck bombing about a month after McCain's warning.
McCain was right to support -- and Joe Biden was wrong to oppose -- the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein in 1991. McCain was right to support intervention in Kosovo later that decade: It worked. He was right to support a stronger military and greater numbers of personnel when Bill Clinton was cutting it. He was right to fight against wasteful weapons systems, and against corruption in military contracting. He was right to fight a specific boondoggle involving an Air Force tanker; he brought corruption to light (the perpetrators both in the Air Force and at the contractor went to jail) and saved the public $6 billion.
McCain was right to say that Saddam Hussein could be overthrown fairly quickly, with little loss of American life. He was right to say that Hussein was a terrible threat. But he was right, very early on, well before anybody else in the Senate, to say that it would take more troops and a different strategy to secure the peace after we had won the war. He broke with President Bush to say so, way back in 2003, and he was right.
John McCain has suffered for his country in a way only a tiny slice of the population ever has. The story is well known -- not just that he suffered in Vietcong captivity, but that he turned down early release in a profound expression of solidarity with his fellow prisoners. Yet McCain had the grace, when the time was right, to hold out an olive branch to the Vietnamese a couple of decades later when they showed a movement toward greater economic freedom.
John McCain is committed to reaching beyond party labels. Whether always right or wrong to do so, he really cares about doing what he thinks is right no matter whose political ox is gored. Barack Obama may talk a bipartisan game, but he never has actually played on that field. The reality, meanwhile, is that sometimes it helps conservative ends to work with people from the other party. Ronald Reagan knew this. Ronald Reagan knew how to bring Democratic congressmen his way -- for tax cuts and for defense improvements and for spending discipline. McCain, because of his long record of bipartisanship, can do likewise -- especially when it comes to spending. McCain has promised to veto any bill, any bill at all, that contains purely local-interest earmarks -- and with a veto, he can make it stick, even against a Democratic Congress. Eventually, once he makes it stick a few times, he can start bringing Democratic "Blue Dogs" his way on spending. Just watch it happen: Yes, it will.
This bears repeating: No candidate for president since Barry Goldwater has been as committed to spending discipline across the board as John McCain is. His entire record for 25 years gives evidence of that reality. Reagan came close to the Goldwater/McCain level of commitment, but McCain has kept up that fight, a lonely fight, for a quarter century. For limited-government conservatives -- actually, that's a redundancy -- this McCainite stubbornness should be cause for far deeper appreciation than it has received.
McCain also has the right instincts on the key issue of the judiciary. It may not be at the top of his list of importance, but he does, unambiguously, favor the appointment of judges who carefully construe the actual text of the Constitution and laws and are willing to be bound by those texts no matter what their own policy preferences. McCain's judicial nominees would be far more likely, by light years, than would be Obama's nominees, to maintain the Constitution's balance between national and state governments, and its restrictions on Congress's powers. His judges would be less likely to make decisions based on their preferred policy results -- but, because the Constitution is written as it is, a close adherence to the text would result in less hostility to religion, less hostility to honest police action, less hostility to private property, and less hostility to local community standards than would the radically liberal judges of the sort Obama favors.
Also, John McCain is an individualist. He believes in private action. He believes that individuals can live their lives responsibly without government acting as nanny and overseer and ultimate decision-maker on virtually every aspect of daily life. McCain trusts people with their own hard-earned money. McCain has never voted for a tax hike. McCain has supported almost every important tax-cut proposal for 25 years. Even on the two cuts he opposed, he stringently has supported keeping the lower level once it was set: It is a point of honor to him that American taxpayers should be able to count on lower tax rates once they are established and once they have begun to make plans based on those rates. McCain particularly understands that investors -- pensioners, 401(k) holders, homeowners -- are the engine of the economy, and that American investors right now are at a huge disadvantage to the entire rest of the developed world because our investment taxes are higher. McCain will cut investment taxes, and that's a very good thing for everybody.
Finally, there can be no doubt, none whatsoever, that John McCain will brook no corruption in his administration. Woe be to the appointee who would risk sullying McCain's vaunted honor by crooked deals and self-serving actions. It is likely that no administration in history will be so concerned with maintaining high ethical standards as a McCain administration would. And it will be blessed relief to have an administration where not even a hint of scandal will be even whispered by honest observers.
So there you have it: John McCain as a patriot firmly rooted in the American traditions of free enterprise, limited government, strong defense, personal accountability, and a decent respect for the cultural standards of the broad middle of the American public. Those are the constituent elements of American exceptionalism -- and to his great credit, John McCain is an American exceptionalist, and an exceptional American.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Krauthammer nails it
From the incomparable Charles Krauthammer:
Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.
I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe -- neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) -- yelling "Stop!" I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain ship. I'd rather lose an election than lose my bearings.
First, I'll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The "erratic" temperament issue, for example. As if McCain's risky and unsuccessful but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war, and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks, not the least of which was the collapse of his campaign just a year ago.
McCain the "erratic" is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.
Nor will I countenance the "dirty campaign" pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs. Another ad falsely claimed that McCain supports "cutting Social Security benefits in half." And for months Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.
McCain's critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What's astonishing is that Obama was himself not offended by William Ayers.
Moreover, the most remarkable of all tactical choices of this election season is the attack that never was. Out of extreme (and unnecessary) conscientiousness, McCain refused to raise the legitimate issue of Obama's most egregious association -- with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dirty campaigning, indeed.
The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.
Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who's been cramming on these issues for the past year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of "a world that stands as one"), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as "the tragedy of 9/11," a term more appropriate for a bus accident?
Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?
There's just no comparison. Obama's own running mate warned this week that Obama's youth and inexperience will invite a crisis -- indeed a crisis "generated" precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?
And how will he pass it? Well, how has he fared on the only two significant foreign policy tests he has faced since he's been in the Senate? The first was the surge. Obama failed spectacularly. He not only opposed it. He tried to denigrate it, stop it and, finally, deny its success.
The second test was Georgia, to which Obama responded instinctively with evenhanded moral equivalence, urging restraint on both sides. McCain did not have to consult his advisers to instantly identify the aggressor.
Today's economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.
Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.
I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe -- neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) -- yelling "Stop!" I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain ship. I'd rather lose an election than lose my bearings.
First, I'll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The "erratic" temperament issue, for example. As if McCain's risky and unsuccessful but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war, and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks, not the least of which was the collapse of his campaign just a year ago.
McCain the "erratic" is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.
Nor will I countenance the "dirty campaign" pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs. Another ad falsely claimed that McCain supports "cutting Social Security benefits in half." And for months Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.
McCain's critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What's astonishing is that Obama was himself not offended by William Ayers.
Moreover, the most remarkable of all tactical choices of this election season is the attack that never was. Out of extreme (and unnecessary) conscientiousness, McCain refused to raise the legitimate issue of Obama's most egregious association -- with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dirty campaigning, indeed.
The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.
Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who's been cramming on these issues for the past year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of "a world that stands as one"), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as "the tragedy of 9/11," a term more appropriate for a bus accident?
Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?
There's just no comparison. Obama's own running mate warned this week that Obama's youth and inexperience will invite a crisis -- indeed a crisis "generated" precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?
And how will he pass it? Well, how has he fared on the only two significant foreign policy tests he has faced since he's been in the Senate? The first was the surge. Obama failed spectacularly. He not only opposed it. He tried to denigrate it, stop it and, finally, deny its success.
The second test was Georgia, to which Obama responded instinctively with evenhanded moral equivalence, urging restraint on both sides. McCain did not have to consult his advisers to instantly identify the aggressor.
Today's economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
I am Spartacus, I am Joe the Plumber, I am Joe the Lawyer
Jennifer Rubin, writing in Commentary, writes that Obama's scary views of redistribution in the economic area also applies in the judicial area:
Barack Obama gave a revealing and perfectly awful answer regarding the role of the Supreme Court in Wednesday’s debate:
I will look for those judges who have an outstanding judicial record, who have the intellect, and who hopefully have a sense of what real-world folks are going through. I’ll just give you one quick example. Senator McCain and I disagreed recently when the Supreme Court made it more difficult for a woman named Lilly Ledbetter to press her claim for pay discrimination. For years, she had been getting paid less than a man had been paid for doing the exact same job. And when she brought a suit, saying equal pay for equal work, the judges said, well, you know, it’s taken you too long to bring this lawsuit, even though she didn’t know about it until fairly recently. We tried to overturn it in the Senate. I supported that effort to provide better guidance to the courts; John McCain opposed it. I think that it’s important for judges to understand that if a woman is out there trying to raise a family, trying to support her family, and is being treated unfairly, then the court has to stand up, if nobody else will. And that’s the kind of judge that I want.
Let’s count up the things that are wrong with this. First, judges aren’t supposed to consider the economic, social or political status of litigants. In fact, they take an oath not to. (”I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . ) It is irrelevant whether the plaintiff was a working stiff, a struggling mom, or an heiress. This was a case of statutory interpretation under the Equal Pay Act. Extending special consideration based on her personal life story would be entirely inappropriate.
Second, the system of separation of powers and the restricted role of the judiciary worked precisely as it should have here. The Court interpreted a statute and found that Congress hadn’t intended for an open-ended statute of limitations to allow equal pay claims to remain open indefinitely. Once the Court ruled, Congress had the ability to come back and amend the statute to explicitly put out the welcome mat for the plaintiff’s bar. They haven’t. And that is now an issue in the presidential election, where once again voters can decide as a policy matter whether they agree with Barack Obama or John McCain. What’s wrong with this?
Finally, if you want to talk “fair,” there are lots of claims for fairness at issue here — small businesses, payroll clerks, employees, shareholders, etc. The Supreme Court is not in the fairness business, with the responsibility to select this or that applicant who comes before it with the most compelling sob story. The Court is in the legislative and Constitutional interpretation business. Invoking “fairness” is an intellectual dodge. What Obama really means, I suspect, is “override the elected branches to give money to the person five of nine lifetime appointees decide is most deserving.” But that sounds downright undemocratic and quite presumptuous. “Fairness” sounds so much better.
In short, this should remove any doubt you might have as to whether Obama views the Court as another cauldron for social engineering and re-distribution of wealth. That’s what “fair” is, right? (Give the money from the company which can’t dig out 20 year-old pay records to the single mom.) Perhaps McCain should start talking more about judges. There has to be a Joe the Lawyer out there to help him.
Good job, Jennifer. I am Spartacus. I am Joe the Plumber. I am Joe the lawyer.
Barack Obama gave a revealing and perfectly awful answer regarding the role of the Supreme Court in Wednesday’s debate:
I will look for those judges who have an outstanding judicial record, who have the intellect, and who hopefully have a sense of what real-world folks are going through. I’ll just give you one quick example. Senator McCain and I disagreed recently when the Supreme Court made it more difficult for a woman named Lilly Ledbetter to press her claim for pay discrimination. For years, she had been getting paid less than a man had been paid for doing the exact same job. And when she brought a suit, saying equal pay for equal work, the judges said, well, you know, it’s taken you too long to bring this lawsuit, even though she didn’t know about it until fairly recently. We tried to overturn it in the Senate. I supported that effort to provide better guidance to the courts; John McCain opposed it. I think that it’s important for judges to understand that if a woman is out there trying to raise a family, trying to support her family, and is being treated unfairly, then the court has to stand up, if nobody else will. And that’s the kind of judge that I want.
Let’s count up the things that are wrong with this. First, judges aren’t supposed to consider the economic, social or political status of litigants. In fact, they take an oath not to. (”I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . ) It is irrelevant whether the plaintiff was a working stiff, a struggling mom, or an heiress. This was a case of statutory interpretation under the Equal Pay Act. Extending special consideration based on her personal life story would be entirely inappropriate.
Second, the system of separation of powers and the restricted role of the judiciary worked precisely as it should have here. The Court interpreted a statute and found that Congress hadn’t intended for an open-ended statute of limitations to allow equal pay claims to remain open indefinitely. Once the Court ruled, Congress had the ability to come back and amend the statute to explicitly put out the welcome mat for the plaintiff’s bar. They haven’t. And that is now an issue in the presidential election, where once again voters can decide as a policy matter whether they agree with Barack Obama or John McCain. What’s wrong with this?
Finally, if you want to talk “fair,” there are lots of claims for fairness at issue here — small businesses, payroll clerks, employees, shareholders, etc. The Supreme Court is not in the fairness business, with the responsibility to select this or that applicant who comes before it with the most compelling sob story. The Court is in the legislative and Constitutional interpretation business. Invoking “fairness” is an intellectual dodge. What Obama really means, I suspect, is “override the elected branches to give money to the person five of nine lifetime appointees decide is most deserving.” But that sounds downright undemocratic and quite presumptuous. “Fairness” sounds so much better.
In short, this should remove any doubt you might have as to whether Obama views the Court as another cauldron for social engineering and re-distribution of wealth. That’s what “fair” is, right? (Give the money from the company which can’t dig out 20 year-old pay records to the single mom.) Perhaps McCain should start talking more about judges. There has to be a Joe the Lawyer out there to help him.
Good job, Jennifer. I am Spartacus. I am Joe the Plumber. I am Joe the lawyer.
"Spread the Wealth Around"
That's what Obama wants to do--he told Joe the Plumber so last week. And this country does not seem to care. Just tax the wealthy and give it to the poor. Doesn't anyone see what's wrong with this? Why not just take the property of the wealthy and give it to the poor (sarcasm). Why not just force people who have homes to take in the homeless (sarcasm).
Seriously, I do not mind progressive taxation--but taxation should be used to raise revenue for the government, not redistribution for social purposes. The problem with collecting more taxes is that it kills jobs and makes government more corrupt because it allows government to dispense money to favored constituencies. It is time to call Obama's plan what it is--socialism or communism.
Seriously, I do not mind progressive taxation--but taxation should be used to raise revenue for the government, not redistribution for social purposes. The problem with collecting more taxes is that it kills jobs and makes government more corrupt because it allows government to dispense money to favored constituencies. It is time to call Obama's plan what it is--socialism or communism.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Supreme Court Noir
Interesting disssent today from Chief Justice Roberts in a Supreme Court case, Pennsylvania v. Dunlap:
North Philly, May 4, 2001. Officer Sean Devlin, Narcotics Strike Force, was working the morning shift. Under cover surveillance. The neighborhood? Tough as a three dollar steak. Devlin knew. Five years on the beat, nine months with the Strike Force. He’d made fifteen, twenty drug busts in the neighborhood. Devlin spotted him: a lone man on the corner. Another approached. Quick exchange of words. Cash handed over; small objects handed back. Each man then quickly on his own way. Devlin knew the guy wasn’t buying bus tokens. He radioed a description and Officer Stein picked up the buyer. Sure enough: three bags of crack in the guy’s pocket. Head downtown and book him. Just another day at the office.
* * *
That was not good enough for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which held in a divided decision that the police lacked probable cause to arrest the defendant. The Court concluded that a “single, isolated transaction” in a high-crime area was insufficient to justify the arrest, given that the officer did not actually see the drugs, there was no tip from an informant, and the defendant did not at tempt to flee. 941 A. 2d 671, 679 (2007). I disagree with that conclusion, and dissent from the denial of certiorari.
North Philly, May 4, 2001. Officer Sean Devlin, Narcotics Strike Force, was working the morning shift. Under cover surveillance. The neighborhood? Tough as a three dollar steak. Devlin knew. Five years on the beat, nine months with the Strike Force. He’d made fifteen, twenty drug busts in the neighborhood. Devlin spotted him: a lone man on the corner. Another approached. Quick exchange of words. Cash handed over; small objects handed back. Each man then quickly on his own way. Devlin knew the guy wasn’t buying bus tokens. He radioed a description and Officer Stein picked up the buyer. Sure enough: three bags of crack in the guy’s pocket. Head downtown and book him. Just another day at the office.
* * *
That was not good enough for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which held in a divided decision that the police lacked probable cause to arrest the defendant. The Court concluded that a “single, isolated transaction” in a high-crime area was insufficient to justify the arrest, given that the officer did not actually see the drugs, there was no tip from an informant, and the defendant did not at tempt to flee. 941 A. 2d 671, 679 (2007). I disagree with that conclusion, and dissent from the denial of certiorari.
Peter Wehner on Obama
Peter Wehner wrote the following on the Commentary blog, which I re-post here:
A Question of Character
Peter Wehner - 10.14.2008 - 4:51 PM
At a time when many people are saying Barack Obama’s past associations with radical figures doesn’t matter — and even that it shouldn’t matter - it’s worth considering the opposite argument.
From the ancient Greeks to the founding fathers, many of our best political minds believed character in our leaders matters. It doesn’t matter more than anything else, and character is itself a complicated thing. People can have strong character in some respects and weak character in others. People can demonstrate battlefield valor, for example, yet show cruelty to those over whom they have power. They can speak unpleasant truths when there is a high cost to doing so and betray their spouses. Individuals can demonstrate admirable loyalty to their friends and still lie to the public, or work for peace and yet violate the laws of our land.
Still, in our wiser moments, we have always understood that character, broadly defined, is important to possess for those in high public office, in part because it tells us whether our leaders warrant our trust, whether their word is dependable, and whether they are responsible. And one of the best indicators of character is the people with whom you associate. This is basic, elementary-school level common sense. The odds are your parents wanted you to hang around with the “right” crowd instead of the wrong crowd because if you hung around with the latter it meant its members would be a bad influence on you, it would reflect poorly on you, and you’d probably end up getting into trouble.
What applies to 10-year-olds also applies to presidential candidates.
Over the years, Barack Obama hung around with some pretty disturbing characters, and what we’re talking about aren’t isolated incidents. It has happened with a slew of people on a range of issues. He has connected himself with domestic terrorists (William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn), with an anti-American and racist minister (Jeremiah Wright), and with corrupt people (Antoin “Tony” Rezko) and organizations (ACORN). What we see, then, is a pattern.
Will it be something that will manifest itself if Obama is elected President? It’s impossible to know for sure, and we can hope it wouldn’t be the case. But it might.
The concern is not that Obama will invite domestic terrorists to the White House for signing ceremonies or private lunches; rather, it is that we know enough about Obama to say that his enormous personal ambition has clouded his judgment over the years. He looks to be a man who will do disquieting things in order to climb the ladder of political success; when he was in Hyde Park, the rungs on that ladder included Mr. Ayers and the Reverend Wright. This kind of trait — soaring ambition trumping sound judgment — can manifest itself in very problematic ways, especially when you occupy the most powerful office in the world.
For those who say that these associations don’t matter, that they’re “distractions” from the more urgent problems of our time and an example of “Swift-boating,” consider this: if John McCain had sat in the pew of a pastor who was a white supremacist and launched his political career at the home of, and developed a working relationship with, a man who bombed abortion clinics or black churches and, for good measure, was unrepentant about it, McCain’s political career would be (rightly) over, and he would be (rightly) ostracized.
A political reference point may be helpful here. Senator Trent Lott was hounded out of his post as Majority Leader because of a few inappropriate comments — made in bad taste but in jest — at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. Much of the media and the political class were outraged. Yet we have a case in which Obama has had close, intimate relations with some really unsavory folks, and we’re told it doesn’t matter one bit.
It’s true enough that the McCain campaign has never explained in a sustained, adequate way why these radical associations matter; that McCain, for reasons that are hard to fathom, has declared the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is off limits; and that the MSM is so deeply wed to Obama’s victory that they have done all they can to turn the issue of Obama’s radical associations into a problem for John McCain rather than Barack Obama. And so it’s quite possible that raising Obama’s radical associations in the last 20 days won’t be politically effective and may even be politically counterproductive, given the economic crisis we’re facing and the ham-handed way it’s been handled so far. Many Americans certainly seems to be of the mind that Obama’s associations with Ayers and Wright and all the rest don’t matter.
I get all that. But some of us believe there is a responsibility to make this case in a calm, responsible, factual way. We believe it’s important to explain why Obama’s radical associations bear on the question of his character, and why Obama’s character bears on the question of electing our next President. This issue shouldn’t, by itself, be dispositive. Nor should it be the only, or even the most important, issue in the campaign. Nor is it fair to say that Obama’s character can be understood only through the prism of his associations. But to evoke eye-rolling, dismissive reactions in response to simply raising the issue is an effort to sideline a legitimate topic.
The time-honored truth is that character matters in leaders. Sometimes people forget that lesson - and when they do, it’s appropriate to remind them. And whether the country understands it or not, and whether voters think it’s a big deal or not, integrity and associations matter.
If Barack Obama is elected President, sooner or later people will realize this applies to him as well. It’s only right to ask the relevant questions in advance of this election — and despite the ridicule being dished out by the acolytes and cheerleaders of Senator Obama, it’s not too much to ask Obama to explain his relationship over the years with people who have a disturbing history of violence, hatred for America, and corruption
A Question of Character
Peter Wehner - 10.14.2008 - 4:51 PM
At a time when many people are saying Barack Obama’s past associations with radical figures doesn’t matter — and even that it shouldn’t matter - it’s worth considering the opposite argument.
From the ancient Greeks to the founding fathers, many of our best political minds believed character in our leaders matters. It doesn’t matter more than anything else, and character is itself a complicated thing. People can have strong character in some respects and weak character in others. People can demonstrate battlefield valor, for example, yet show cruelty to those over whom they have power. They can speak unpleasant truths when there is a high cost to doing so and betray their spouses. Individuals can demonstrate admirable loyalty to their friends and still lie to the public, or work for peace and yet violate the laws of our land.
Still, in our wiser moments, we have always understood that character, broadly defined, is important to possess for those in high public office, in part because it tells us whether our leaders warrant our trust, whether their word is dependable, and whether they are responsible. And one of the best indicators of character is the people with whom you associate. This is basic, elementary-school level common sense. The odds are your parents wanted you to hang around with the “right” crowd instead of the wrong crowd because if you hung around with the latter it meant its members would be a bad influence on you, it would reflect poorly on you, and you’d probably end up getting into trouble.
What applies to 10-year-olds also applies to presidential candidates.
Over the years, Barack Obama hung around with some pretty disturbing characters, and what we’re talking about aren’t isolated incidents. It has happened with a slew of people on a range of issues. He has connected himself with domestic terrorists (William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn), with an anti-American and racist minister (Jeremiah Wright), and with corrupt people (Antoin “Tony” Rezko) and organizations (ACORN). What we see, then, is a pattern.
Will it be something that will manifest itself if Obama is elected President? It’s impossible to know for sure, and we can hope it wouldn’t be the case. But it might.
The concern is not that Obama will invite domestic terrorists to the White House for signing ceremonies or private lunches; rather, it is that we know enough about Obama to say that his enormous personal ambition has clouded his judgment over the years. He looks to be a man who will do disquieting things in order to climb the ladder of political success; when he was in Hyde Park, the rungs on that ladder included Mr. Ayers and the Reverend Wright. This kind of trait — soaring ambition trumping sound judgment — can manifest itself in very problematic ways, especially when you occupy the most powerful office in the world.
For those who say that these associations don’t matter, that they’re “distractions” from the more urgent problems of our time and an example of “Swift-boating,” consider this: if John McCain had sat in the pew of a pastor who was a white supremacist and launched his political career at the home of, and developed a working relationship with, a man who bombed abortion clinics or black churches and, for good measure, was unrepentant about it, McCain’s political career would be (rightly) over, and he would be (rightly) ostracized.
A political reference point may be helpful here. Senator Trent Lott was hounded out of his post as Majority Leader because of a few inappropriate comments — made in bad taste but in jest — at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. Much of the media and the political class were outraged. Yet we have a case in which Obama has had close, intimate relations with some really unsavory folks, and we’re told it doesn’t matter one bit.
It’s true enough that the McCain campaign has never explained in a sustained, adequate way why these radical associations matter; that McCain, for reasons that are hard to fathom, has declared the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is off limits; and that the MSM is so deeply wed to Obama’s victory that they have done all they can to turn the issue of Obama’s radical associations into a problem for John McCain rather than Barack Obama. And so it’s quite possible that raising Obama’s radical associations in the last 20 days won’t be politically effective and may even be politically counterproductive, given the economic crisis we’re facing and the ham-handed way it’s been handled so far. Many Americans certainly seems to be of the mind that Obama’s associations with Ayers and Wright and all the rest don’t matter.
I get all that. But some of us believe there is a responsibility to make this case in a calm, responsible, factual way. We believe it’s important to explain why Obama’s radical associations bear on the question of his character, and why Obama’s character bears on the question of electing our next President. This issue shouldn’t, by itself, be dispositive. Nor should it be the only, or even the most important, issue in the campaign. Nor is it fair to say that Obama’s character can be understood only through the prism of his associations. But to evoke eye-rolling, dismissive reactions in response to simply raising the issue is an effort to sideline a legitimate topic.
The time-honored truth is that character matters in leaders. Sometimes people forget that lesson - and when they do, it’s appropriate to remind them. And whether the country understands it or not, and whether voters think it’s a big deal or not, integrity and associations matter.
If Barack Obama is elected President, sooner or later people will realize this applies to him as well. It’s only right to ask the relevant questions in advance of this election — and despite the ridicule being dished out by the acolytes and cheerleaders of Senator Obama, it’s not too much to ask Obama to explain his relationship over the years with people who have a disturbing history of violence, hatred for America, and corruption
Monday, October 06, 2008
David Gelertner on Obama
David Gelertner is someone I greatly respect. Some people do not know that he had his hands blown off by the Unabomber some years ago. Here are his ten points of advice to McCain:
1. Mr. Obama is the most liberal senator in Washington.
2. Like other liberal presidents, he'd load the Supreme Court with the most liberal judges he could find.
3. Like other liberal presidents, he'd spend tax dollars like they were going out of style--when the economy must have a steady, experienced, pork-hating hand at the wheel.
4. Like other liberal senators, Mr. Obama was prepared to surrender to terrorists in Iraq.
5. Like other liberal senators, he is the wrong man to protect your children against Russia, Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda in dangerous times.
6. I fought for responsible regulation of the mortgage merchants when the Democrats were against it. I don't just talk, I act.
7. My closest Senate colleague is a Democrat, Joe Lieberman. I don't just talk bipartisanship, I act.
8. I picked Sarah Palin because our country needs young leaders who don't just talk; who act.
9. I'll do what I know is right, no matter what China or Germany or the U.N. thinks. You can't protect this nation by talking. You have to act.
10. Don't judge me as a politician or speech-maker.
1. Mr. Obama is the most liberal senator in Washington.
2. Like other liberal presidents, he'd load the Supreme Court with the most liberal judges he could find.
3. Like other liberal presidents, he'd spend tax dollars like they were going out of style--when the economy must have a steady, experienced, pork-hating hand at the wheel.
4. Like other liberal senators, Mr. Obama was prepared to surrender to terrorists in Iraq.
5. Like other liberal senators, he is the wrong man to protect your children against Russia, Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda in dangerous times.
6. I fought for responsible regulation of the mortgage merchants when the Democrats were against it. I don't just talk, I act.
7. My closest Senate colleague is a Democrat, Joe Lieberman. I don't just talk bipartisanship, I act.
8. I picked Sarah Palin because our country needs young leaders who don't just talk; who act.
9. I'll do what I know is right, no matter what China or Germany or the U.N. thinks. You can't protect this nation by talking. You have to act.
10. Don't judge me as a politician or speech-maker.
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