Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton debating in Texas on Thursday. (Photo by Deborah Cannon)
Washington Post Columnist Robert J. Samuelson wrote a column on Wednesday questioning the Barack Obama phenomenon. We will see more pieces like this, especially if Sen. Obama, (D-IL), becomes the Democratic Party nominee.
Let me attempt to refute some of his more salient points.
I don’t want to say Samuelson’s column is ridiculous. He does raise some interesting questions about Obama. He says in The Obama Delusion that he came away from an encounter with Obama at the 2004 Democratic Party Convention “deeply impressed by his intelligence, his forceful language and his apparent willingness to take positions that seemed to rise above narrow partisanship.”
Obama has become the Democratic presidential front-runner precisely because countless millions have formed a similar opinion. It is, I now think, mistaken.
As a journalist, I harbor serious doubt about each of the most likely nominees. But with Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain, I feel that I’m dealing with known quantities. They’ve been in the public arena for years; their views, values and temperaments have received enormous scrutiny. By contrast, newcomer Obama is largely a stage presence defined mostly by his powerful rhetoric. The trouble, at least for me, is the huge and deceptive gap between his captivating oratory and his actual views.
By Samuelson’s standard, only people who have held national office and are well known should put themselves forward as candidates for President of the United States. Although George W. Bush came from a prominent family and was governor of a state, not much was known about him (we still don’t know about his going AWOL from his Air National Guard units during the Vietnam War; his drug use during much of his adult life; and other criminal behavior and activities before he allegedly found religion). His entire adult life (besides drinking and drugging) was spent as his father’s enforcer in the deep background.
Hillary Clinton is known to the whole world, which is both her strength and weakness. Many voters are rejecting her precisely because they know her so well. Obama, besides being a community organizer and a civil rights lawyer, was a state legislator for eight years.
Samuelson criticized the plans that Obama has put forth about what he would like to do in office.
If you examine his agenda, it is completely ordinary, highly partisan, not candid and mostly unresponsive to many pressing national problems.
He is right. Obama’s ideas are quite pedestrian. But Mrs. Clinton’s plans are only slightly less so. Obama’s supporters either cannot see, or refuse to see, the conventional politician right before them. They think it’s a revolution when, in fact, all it is is an election and a man running as hard as he can to win an office.
But, that said, I don’t believe it’s Obama’s job to lay out a plan on what he intends to do as president. That’s not part of the job description. I think most people trot out these plans because they think it’s required of them.
Did Bush talk about ‘unitary executive’ doctrine when he ran for President? No. He talked about being a ‘compassionate conservative’ and ‘a uniter, not a divider.’ We know now that both tropes are blatant lies.
A lot of people remember now Bill Clinton’s presidency fondly (willingly forgetting the impeachment and other assorted sordid goings on during those eight years) but what plans did he run on and did he implement them?
One of the things that a leader has to do is inspire and any other year I would have been inspired by Mrs. Clinton. Next to Obama, however, she depresses me.
I think Obama will be a better president and part of the reason is that he’s new and fresh and does not carry the scars and baggage of two decades of warring with Republicans. With Mrs. Clinton, we’re going to have to refight all the old fights.
And it helps that Obama is an inspirational leader.
Please, don’t get me started on McCain. As you all know by now, I think Sen. John McCain is a corrupt and immoral hypocrite.
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