The Senator from Illinois isn’t flip-flopping on accepting public financing for his campaign.
He’s just Barack-tracking.
He does that a lot.
According to a new YouGov poll, conducted for the Daily Telegraph, If European voters were deciding the U.S. Presidential election, Senator Obama would defeat Senator McCain by a margin of 52 percent to 15 percent.
The margin is wider in France, Italy and Germany, where Obama attracted 65, 70 and 67 percent respectively. In Russia, the race tightens, with Obama attracting 31 percent to McCain’s 24 percent. In the UK, Obama scrapes just short of a majority, with 49 percent against McCain’s 14 percent.
What’s striking about these figures isn’t the outcome. Spend five minutes on the street in any part of Europe, and you’ll learn that liberalism and the welfare state are part of the political DNA. In that sense, most voters in Europe can’t conceive of electing a truly conservative politician. And given their animus towards our current President, the notion that America might elect another Republicans leaves Europeans mystified and fearful.
No, what’s striking about these figures is what lies beneath.
YouGov also asked Europeans whether “You think the United States is overall a force for good or force for evil in today’s world?”
Overall, 43 percent said the U.S. is a force for evil, while only 27 percent said force for good. 30 percent weren’t sure. Indeed, of the five nations surveyed, only Italy, by a margin of 49 percent to 27 percent, thought the U.S. is a force for good. A plurality of voters in the UK, France, Germany and Russia all thought the U.S. is a force for evil, by margins of 2, 12, and an astonishing 40 percentage points respectively.
Do Europeans think that Barrack Obama will help make the U.S. a force for good? We don’t know. If YouGov asked, they haven’t revealed the results.
But consider how far we’ve come in just seven years. On September 13, 2001, NATO — which includes all of the countries surveyed except Russia — invoked the mutual-defense provisions of its founding treaty for the only time in its history to support the U.S.
Today, nearly half of Europeans think that the U.S. is a force for evil. That’s a pretty sobering thought.
Now, when we Americans hear such things, we usually point the finger back at Europe, saying that it’s them who have gone soft, and we who are standing by our principles. Leadership is lonely sometimes, we like to think.
I have to admit that I’m not entirely sure where I come down on this. It’s abundantly clear that as a nation, we’ve made our share of mistakes over the last few years. Much has been written about squandered opportunities after 9/11. Personally, I think a better leader — a statesman in the mold of ages past — could have seized that opportunity and shaped a truly world-changing moment. That said, I’m not entirely sure that in 20 years, we won’t look back and celebrate the rise of democracy in the Middle East that resulted from the agony of the period we’re living through now. I am doubtful, but as ever, hopeful.
What is also clear is that Europe is changing as quickly as the U.S. Europeans used to have long memories. The well of gratitude for the U.S contributions to winning two world wars and the Cold War was deep. Now, it seems, that well is dry.
I attribute this to the passing of the generation that lived through World War II and met so many liberating GIs as they passed through towns and villages. I also point to the mass multi-culturization of Europe by immigrants from every corner of the globe. Those who have only recently arrived have no cause for gratitude. Nevertheless, it’s sad to see old friendships, wrought from the fires of conflict, wither as interests diverge.
Europeans don’t vote in the U.S. presidential election, but they are fixated to its happenings. Many think that Obama will win handily. When they ask me, I tell them that I don’t know what the outcome will be, but that they should expect a very close, hard-fought contest, and that the outcome may look a lot like it did on that long night in 2000.
They surprised, often incredulous looks I get in reply speak volumes in reply.
And as the next President, whoever he may be, begins to formulate his own foreign policy, the views of Europe towards the United States are something that he should, and must, consider.
NOTE: The raw data of the survey can be found here (.xls file).
Senator Obama wants major cutbacks to the NASA budget. He tells the Baltimore Sun: “NASA has lost focus and is no longer associated with inspiration,” he said. “I don’t think our kids are watching the space shuttle launches. It used to be a remarkable thing. It doesn’t even pass for news anymore.”
Well, Senator, perhaps if NASA’s budget hadn’t already been cut to the bone, they would be accomplishing a bit more. Like, say, going to the Moon and Mars in the next decade. Oh, wait…
Obama has portrayed himself as the “hope” candidate, but he’s prepared to turn his back on exploring our universe. That seems disingenuous. Oh, wait…
But at least Senator Obama’s position is clear. Senators Clinton and McCain seem content to puff around with vague generalities.
As a voter and strong supporter of a manned space program, I hope that the candidates will reconsider their positions. there is much hope in space, and much to learn out there in the great beyond. Our elected officials need to remember that.
Jim: Marshall… I’m finding this as frustrating as you are; it’s surprising that a guy who talks so much about hope and overcoming skepticism has so little interest in exploring the final frontier.
But I can’t help but wonder if NASA has become too large, slow-moving, and bureaucratic to truly lead in exploration. Has anything NASA has done in the past ten years been as exciting as SpaceShipOne winning the X-Prize? Maybe the Mars rovers. But it’s the risk-taking mad genius of the Richard Bransons of the world who are making space tourism a real possibility for the not-too-distant future.
We will probably see amazing breakthroughs in humanity’s exploration of the universe in our lifetimes. But increasingly, it feels like those breakthroughs will be driven by the private sector, not by the U.S. government…
The FEC has been effectively shut down since December because the Senate refused to confirm appointees to the Commission, leaving it short of the quorum necessary to do business. The heart of the dispute was the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky, who had previously worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
I celebrated the effective shuttering of the Commission because, well, I like freedom, and the FEC isn’t exactly a bastion of it. Indeed, the prospect of going through a Presidential election without a functioning FEC, matching funds or silly advisory opinions positively filled me with glee.
Unfortunately, true to form, the White House caved yesterday, aided and abetted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. (You can read his statement below the fold.) Under an agree struck with Senate Democrats, the Senate will confirm three nominees and be allowed to defeat von Spakovsky separately.
So, in a few weeks, the FEC will be back up and running. What a total bummer.
UPDATE: Bob Bauer, one of the top election law specialists in either party (and is also Counsel to Senator Obama’s campaign) weighs in, accusing the White House of trying to shape the Commission in a way that benefits Senator McCain. Both the timing and the decision not to reappoint Commissioner Mason support Bauer’s argument. Professor Hasen also weighs in with similar thoughts. It’s hard to argue with either point of view.
So now, two of my favorite saw-horses have come together: Disappointment that the FEC is back in business and even more evidence that Senator McCain’s reformer persona is nothing but a disingenuous act by a fundamentally dishonest politician.
A few weeks ago, when the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright first hit the front pages, I wrote a post defending Senator Obama. I argued that it was unfair to hold the Senator responsible for what his Pastor might have said from the pulpit. Cam and Jim argued vociferously that the Senator’s failure to break from his pastor suggested bad judgment.
On Monday, as the whole world knows, Rev. Wright gave a speech and answered questions at the National Press Club, in which he repeated and defended his most bizarre and offensive utterances. He was joined by a cast of hundreds, including representatives of the Nation of Islam, anxious to get behind his delusional, racist and hateful views.
Yesterday, Cam published a powerful and personal post just below. And if you haven’t read it, you really must do so at once.
Cam’s post got me thinking and reflecting on my earlier defense of Senator Obama (one I’ve repeated, by the way, to incredulous looks from friends over the past few weeks.) For me, this is the central point of Cam’s post:
I’m starting to wonder if your comments distancing yourself from Reverend Wright are really sincere. I’m also wondering if you were really that close with him to begin with. I’m wondering a lot of things about you, but it boils down to one concern: are you lying to us now, or were you lying to us all along about Reverend Wright? Either way, it would make you the worst kind of politician. You know the stereotype: slimy, oozing with contempt for the voters, willing to say anything to get elected. The exact opposite of how you present yourself, basically.
And I don’t know how you get beyond that Senator. You’re either A) the worst judge in character the world has ever seen or B) another lying politician who just wants to get elected and thinks Americans have the intelligence of tree stumps. Either way, when it comes to the content of your character… you fail. You could have walked out of that church at any point over the past twenty years. You could have used your big speech in Philadelphia to put to rest this issue, not claim the Reverend Wright as a member of your family. Because of your failure of character, you’re now merely following the conventional political wisdom instead of exhibiting true leadership and principle.
Having reflected on this, and heard Rev. Wright’s expanded views on Monday, my own concern is actually somewhat different. I’m now wondering if Barrack Obama is a racist the way his pastor evidently is.
Let me step back for a second.
The speech that Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered in Washington in front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963 is justifiably one of the most famous ever given. In it, he articulates his vision for race relations in America. The central passage won’t be unfamiliar to anyone:
Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
It’s this last point that has always had the strongest, most emotional impact on me. “They will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” Dr. King said. For me, Dr. King’s ideal was simple and wonderful: that race would, someday, simply no longer be a factor. Some have called this the dream of a colorblind America.
At the time that Dr. King delivered his speech, white America had a long way to. In the speech, he focuses on the south, but the race riots of the later 1960s and 1970s revealed divisions in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington and almost every major city across the country.
I’d like to think that we’ve come a long way, but, to be sure, we haven’t achieved Dr. King’s dream.
For that, I increasingly point the finger at people like Dr. Wright, Al Sharpton, and others who try to channel anger and leverage hate and fear for their own personal gain. For me, they aren’t just holding back progress. They are actively contributing to a culture of racism that they claim to deplore. They aren’t after equality. And they are openly hostile to Dr. King’s dream that “little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” By implication, Dr. Wright and his ilk want to return America to the days of separation.
For me, Senator Obama seemed like just the opposite. Even though his political record suggests that he is a conventional liberal, his rhetoric was soaring and hopeful. His stark repudiation of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s approach to campaigning — refusing to campaign as a black man and instead propounding a vision of hope for all Americans regardless of race — was and is very appealing to me.
So it is, therefore, exceedingly difficult to resolve these views which Senator professes with his decision to sit for twenty or more years in the pews in front of a man who seems so full of hate.
On this basis, Cam wonders if Senator Obama is being insincere in his views or lying about his relationship with Rev. Wright.
Let’s consider, briefly, the implications of both possibilities.
If Senator Obama is being insincere, then we can assume that he shares his pastor’s views, at least on some level, but by definition, it’s impossible to know to what degree. That leaves me in a troubling quandary, because I certainly don’t want to put a paranoid hate-monger in the White House. (And to be clear, I’m not saying that he is. Just that it might be an open question.)
If Senator Obama is lying, and he contrived the depth of his relationship with Rev. Wright as a political convenience, perhaps to ingratiate himself with the black community in Chicago, his claim to be a “different kind of candidate” is revealed to be a simple falsehood as well.
In either circumstance, I am compelled admit that my earlier defense of the Senator was a mistake.
In the practical world of politics, however, Cam might be right when he suggests with a touch of irony that “we’ll be too distracted by American Idol and the price of gasoline to remember any of this come November.”
I certainly hope not. This episode may provide our first window into the real Barrack Obama, the man who might be our President. We would do ourselves a grave injustice if we manage to overlook it.
UPDATE: The first thing Mike Huckabee has said in this campaign that I agree with:
“[Obama’s] campaign is not being derailed by his race, it’s being derailed by a person who doesn’t want him to prove that we have made great advances in this country,” Huckabee told reporters. … “Jeremiah Wright needs for Obama to lose so he can justify his anger, his hostile bitterness against the United States of America,” Huckabee said.
Well said, Governor.
What are government’s core functions? This is the philosophical question of the ages. There is no perfect answer. For my money (literally), government’s three most important tasks are (1) Maintaining the armed forces to keep up safe from foreign threats; (2) Exercising its police powers to prevent crime and maintain order; and (3) Building and maintaining the infrastructure that keeps commerce flowing.
So this story from Popular Mechanics (ht: Glenn, natch), caught my interest.
It’s no secret that federal, state and local government have all basically ignored infrastructure issues for about the last fifty years. So it should be no great surprise that our infrastructure is crumbling. Meanwhile, we keep asking government to pay for all sorts of extraneous crap.
It’s time to get off the dime and get this stuff fixed. That means getting our priorities straight. But we desperately need more roads, bridges, and rail, and we’ve got to fix the big stuff that’s out there decaying even as we speak. Traffic in big cities is already having a tremendous impact on commerce, and that’s bad for all of us. Not to mention the hours Americans spend stuck in cars instead of doing more important things.
So, note to politicians: grow some backbone, and get busy.
Weeks ago, I wrote that Senator Clinton’s reliance on her “experience” was her biggest strategic mistake. Campaign watchers are beginning to agree with me. Check out #1 in this list from Mark Halperin.
Cam, I appreciate your point of view, and I don’t disagree with anything you said. When it comes to Pastor Wright, I think the guy is a total whack ass. But at the end of the day, Barrack Obama doesn’t subscribe to Pastor Wright’s views. He has said that he doesn’t. So why is it fair to attack him for his pastor’s views? In short, IMHO, it isn’t.
Jim: Marshall, like Cam, I hate to disagree. Eh, who am I kidding? I like going tooth and nail with a mind I respect.
Marshall, you wrote, “Anyone who has a close relationship with their pastor has experienced what Barrack Obama described today.”
Really? I don’t have any particularly close relationships with a pastor, so I’ll admit, I can’t relate. But have you ever had your pastor say something that you not merely disagree strongly with, but that leave you slackjawed, as I presume the whole AIDS/USofKKKA/God d*** America troika did? (I realize these things are personal, so you don’t have to reply; treat that as rhetorical as necessary.) I’ve heard homilies that have left me rolling my eyes, but nothing on par with Wright’s. I think the order of magnitude of degree of shock and appall is so different, that Obama’s invoking the weekly disagreements on politics in the pews was comparing apples and oranges.
“And to hold Senator Obama responsible for Pastor Wright’s views is, in my view, totally unfair.”
Are we holding Obama responsible for Wright’s views? Or are we holding him responsible for his choice of mentor, his choice of which church to join, his choice to stay once he heard what he found so objectionable, his choice to bring his daughters to a house of worship that taught such things, and his choice to, to the best of our knowledge, avoid a painful discussion with his friend and mentor about what he preaches from the pulpit? Others have decided that Trinity United Church of Christ was not for them, among them Obama’s friend Oprah.
A man who claims to have dedicated his career to good, clean government chooses to buy his house with Tony Rezko, and a man who claims to have dedicated his life to racial reconciliation chooses to attend a church that teaches that the government created AIDS to commit genocide against minorities. Obama has this strange habit of choosing a path that takes him in the opposite direction of his stated goal.
Marshall, I guess I think you’re being too kind when you say with such certainty “Barack Obama doesn’t subscribe to Pastor Wright’s views.” Indeed, he claims he doesn’t. But there are strange echoes of Wright in his wife’s comments that America is a country that is “just downright mean” or that Obama’s success is the first time she’s been proud of America in her adult life, or that every woman she knows is struggling to keep her head above water (including, presumbly, her friend Oprah). She, like Wright, seems at times to suggest that America is a relentlessly rotten place, full of cruelty and injustice, and that the only proper solution is to elect her husband president.
For certain public figures, their record is long enough and clear enough that some accusations are just silly. Lefty bloggers tried to tag John McCain with the anti-Catholicism of Texas televangelist John Hagee, who endorsed him. But there’s nothing in McCain’s record to suggest anti-Catholicism, and the accusation is laughable to the Catholics who work for him. (I think it’s safe to say John McCain doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about theological differences among branches of Christianity.)
What does Barack Obama really think, really say, when the cameras and microphones are put away and it’s just Michelle and him, or Pastor Jeremiah and him? Does he agree with their angrier, more divisive statements when he’s away from the prying eyes of public scrutiny? When they talk about America and whites and blacks, does he sound like the Obama we’ve seen in the spotlight for the past four years? Or does he sound more like Michelle or Wright?
I don’t know. And I don’t think anyone outside their closest inner circle knows, either.
Oh, how I hate to disagree with my buddy. But in this case I have no other option.
Marshall writes:
I go to church, and like Senator Obama, I’ve sat quietly in my seat listening to my pastor say things which with I’ve disagreed, oftentimes strongly. But that doesn’t mean that I believe him to be any less a man of God.
God is perfect. Men are fallible. Which means men like Pastor Wright are fallible, too. Pastor Wright brought Barrack Obama closer to God. That’s his life’s purpose. He is not a man of politics. That’s Senator Obama’s territory. And to hold Senator Obama responsible for Pastor Wright’s views is, in my view, totally unfair.
I hasten to add, it’s equally unfair when the media try to indict a conservative politician for attacking the religious views of his or her church. So let’s attack the double standard, but let’s not attack the candidates.
It’s fine to disagree with your pastor, though I still think if my pastor had said the things Jeremiah Wright said, I’d be looking for another church. But my problems go far beyond “U-S of K-K-K A” and “God Damn America”. Barack Obama says he disagrees with Wright’s statements. But what about Wright’s theology?
Rev. Wright’s theology is one that he describes as “black liberation theology”. Well, if liberation theology in general can be described as Christian Socialism, then black liberation theology could best be described as Christian Socialism with a specific emphasis on social equality for blacks. I don’t believe this is a “black seperatist” or a “black supremacist” movement. But when the basis of your church is that every act or thought must be viewed through a racial prism, it’s kind of hard for me to accept that Obama’s going to be the guy to bridge the racial divide in this country.
Frankly, from where I sit, it seems black liberation theology has little to do with the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. Compare this:
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
…
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
To this exerpt from a Jeremiah Wright sermon.
It just came to me with — within the past few weeks, you all, why so many folk are hating on Barack Obama. He doesn’t fit the model. He ain’t white. He ain’t rich. And he ain’t privileged.
Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people.
I guess one of my biggest problems isn’t necessarily JUST with the comments we’ve seen from Rev. Wright. It is that Rev. Wright’s comments don’t seem out of line with liberation theology in general, and black liberation theology in particular. And I’m having a hard time seeing how black liberation theology is anything but a perversion of Martin Luther King’s vision of a society in which we are judged by the content of our character, rather than the color of our skin.
I’m sure if you look through Rev. Wright’s sermons, you’ll see a lot of talk of hope, and love, and charity. But if he is, as he says he is, a proponent of black liberation theology, then it will always be about the racial division, not the common ground we all share. It seems to me the message of Rev. Wright is completely different than the message Barack Obama has been expressing, which makes me wonder how he could have attended this church for 20+ years if Rev. Wright’s theology didn’t ring true.
I may have mentioned before that my 21-year old daughter (the offspring of a white woman and a black man) is an Obama supporter. Part of that is her age, but a large part of his appeal has to do with the fact that someone “like her” could be in the White House. One of the things I’ve tried to impress upon her is that ideology isn’t skin deep. She may well have a lot in common with Barack Obama, but basing her vote on their similar skin color isn’t a very mature way to vote. I’ve told her that I hope we can have a real conversation about what she perceives to be Obama’s strengths and weaknesses, because I want her to make an informed vote in November. If her chosen candidate subscribes to a religious theology that says I’M the biggest problem in my her life because of the color of my skin, I’d like her to be aware of that.
I’m ready for the attacks on Senator Obama over his pastor’s views to be over.
And, yes. I watched the speech.
Anyone who has a close relationship with their pastor has experienced what Barrack Obama described today. And there’s no reason to think that the Senator shared his pastor’s views on any issue at any time. In fact, he explicitly said today that he didn’t.
For me, the two most relevant pieces of the speech are these:
Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
[snip]
[Trinity] church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children.
I go to church, and like Senator Obama, I’ve sat quietly in my seat listening to my pastor say things which with I’ve disagreed, oftentimes strongly. But that doesn’t mean that I believe him to be any less a man of God.
God is perfect. Men are fallible. Which means men like Pastor Wright are fallible, too. Pastor Wright brought Barrack Obama closer to God. That’s his life’s purpose. He is not a man of politics. That’s Senator Obama’s territory. And to hold Senator Obama responsible for Pastor Wright’s views is, in my view, totally unfair.
I hasten to add, it’s equally unfair when the media try to indict a conservative politician for attacking the religious views of his or her church. So let’s attack the double standard, but let’s not attack the candidates.